Community library hosts sweets tasting held by Speach

By JASon klAiBER staFF Writer

The Community Library of DeWitt & Jamesville brought in people of all ages last week for a sweets tasting hosted by the fourth-generation operator of Speach Family Candy Shoppe. The sampling started with a “basic” and evenly balanced milk chocolate as a palate cleanser for the attendees who filled up the downstairs community room.

“It’s that concept of waking up your taste buds so they can be prepared to actually experience a tasting,” said Michael Speach Jr., who guided the June 6 event at the library on Jamesville Road. Next there was a Hershey’s candy bar to serve as a reference point that people would be accustomed to before they tried out the sweets that Speach makes. From there, the tasters gravitated to the middle section of their paper trays, which contained the Syracuse candy shop’s trio of signature curated chocolates: its white chocolate, milk chocolate and dark chocolate. At that point, Speach asked everyone how much they enjoyed each of the three chunks and whether anyone’s opinions changed with regard to each of those particular types of chocolate.

He said his store’s dark chocolate blend given out that evening is a No.

1 seller, which he views as “odd” considering that milk chocolate tends to be more prevalent in the candy industry. He said he credits the dark chocolate’s success to its “mellow” flavor in place of a heaviness or a “bitter bite.”

Speach said his family business works with 85 different blends of chocolate in total to make the various products they have for sale.

“What we’ve done over time is we’ve taken all of these different attributes from all the different chocolates,” he said. “Some of them are more shiny, some of them melt at a different temperature, some of them have a different flavor, and some of