Club News
The monthly newsletter from the Tasting Club
Issue 1305
HELLO sunshine No matter what our British summer has in store, we’ve got plenty of sunshine for you. See more on page 5
Is size everything? Find our why Tasting Club chocolates come in lots of different shapes and sizes. Turn to page 7
Ghana Appeal Our new chocolate making facility means an exciting array of new recipes is coming to your tasting box soon!
art science
where meets
For over five years now we’ve been steadily increasing our chocolate making expertise and our range of recipes, but recently we have taken an exciting step forward.
1305NL
We have just finished installing and testing a whole new chocolate making facility for The Chocolate Tasting Club and Hotel Chocolat that will allow us to hugely expand our repertoire of recipes. So, what is it and why are we so excited?... continued on page 8...
Target:
£45,000 If you would like to contribute to the Appeal to fund the Osuben Medical Clinic (CHPS).
Current Amount:
£21,372
Please send a cheque for whatever amount you can give made payable to: The Cocoa Farmers’ Fund, and send to: CTC Ghana Appeal, FREEPOST ANG10659, Royston, SG8 5YD.
Letter from the guest
Editor
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his month’s Guest Editor is Matt Margereson, our Managing Director of Operations who joined us over five years ago. Matt and his team are just completing three months of a huge upheaval at our Hadley Park manufactory and now as he “pulls the switch” to start the process it seems appropriate to let him tell you what’s been going on and what’s in store for you. We have stated boldly that we have an unswerving appetite to create and develop the best couverture and chocolates possible and I’d like to share some of our recent and ongoing developments in skill, process capability and the search for new ingredients. Chocolate making is a fine balance between developing the “human” creative skills with the substantial investment in the equipment. I like to think of it as craft and creativity meets science! There is our highly inventive chocolatier team supported by their apprentices, the “backroom boys” of chocolate making process specialists and of course the production guys who turn all that creativity into reality with a relentless eye for consistent quality.
CONTENTS Page 1, 8-9
Hadley Park: Where art meets science
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What’s in your chocolate: Trinitario
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Prize draw results
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All aboard: The Grand Tour is departing
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New special: Summer Desserts is here!
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Focus: Dark Selection
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Is size everything?
10-11
Monthly box scores & feedback
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Cotes de Rabot?
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Master of Chocolate: Peter Harris
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Pioneers of chocolate: Milton Hershey
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Hotel Chocolat wins: Retail Week Award
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Special results: Fortified 11
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Roast+Conch: Conching
Their world has suddenly changed with the installation of new chocolate making equipment utilising a technique called Cold Press. It gives us a huge potential for new filling genres, ingredients – like juicy whole fruit (a plump, fresh cherry in a smooth ganache is my “pet project”) and finishing decorations that will allow us to push the boundaries – so there’s exciting times ahead for all. You can find out more in the main article of this edition of Club News with lots of facts and figures. But the key point I want to make is that this change has been embraced by every member in my team. Equipment and technology can only get you so far, to truly make the best chocolates possible you need people with passion and, thankfully, I have them all around me!
Matt Margereson Managing Director – Operations & Guest Editor Send your letters to The Chocolate Tasting Club, Mint House, Royston SG8 5HL, or simply email editor@ hotelchocolat.co.uk or via our website: www.chocs.co.uk. We are waiting to hear from you! Contributors: Peter Harris, Matt Margereson Simon Thirlwell and Terry Waters, © The Chocolate Tasting Club plc 2013
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GUEST EDITORSHIP
will be from a wide cross-section of people in the club’s orbit – fellow cocoa growers, eminent people in their field, leaders with a point of view, club members with an interesting angle and the occasional celebrity member. To nominate or apply for a future Guest Editorship, drop us a line editor@hotelchocolat.co.uk
What’s in your chocolate?
Trinitario cocoa
C
ocoa, in a similar way to grapes and fine wine, falls into two distinct categories, bulk or fine. Within those categories there are three main types of cocoa – Criollo, Trinitario (both fine cocoas) and Forastero (bulk cocoa), which all have their own characteristics. Trinitario is a hybrid strain, which in many ways combines the best of both parents – the quality of Criollo with the vigour of the Forastero. It originated on the island of Trinidad after what is known as the ‘blast’ of 1727 (which is thought to have been either a hurricane or a disease) killed most of the Criollo trees that had been planted there. The surviving trees then cross-pollinated with the replacement Forastero trees grown from South American seed. Trinitario represents approximately 10-15 per cent of the world’s cocoa.
We have identified rare Trinitario trees on our own Rabot Estate in Saint Lucia and have carefully propagated new seedlings from them. The beans are full of character and typical Trinitario red fruit notes, which can all be experienced in our Rabot Estate and Island Grower chocolates.
A typical Trinitario pod
Prize Draw CHOCOLATE
scorers’
Let us have your scores online or by post and you’ll automatically be entered into this Prize Draw every month to win Hotel Chocolat goodies!
Classic Selection Prize draw winner is Miss Arabel Yandle from Martock who wins a Goody Bag of the Season. Next month’s prize is an Exuberantly Fruity Selection.
Dark Selection Prize draw winner is Mr Eric Lysons from Macclesfield who wins a Dark Chocolate Dipping Adventure. Next month’s prize is a Midnight Mints Selection.
Elements
Selection
Prize draw winner is Mrs Ruth Gray from Newport Pagnell who wins a Caramel Pecan Pie Giant Slab. Next month’s prize is a Cookies & Crème Giant Slab.
Purist
Selection
Prize draw winner is Ms Jane Crawford from Witney who wins a selection of Rabot Estate 70% Dark Slabs. Next month’s prize is a Coastal Ecuador Hacienda Iara 90% Dark Bar.
All Milk
Selection
Prize draw winner is Miss Rachel Smith from Wallington who wins a Milk Adventure Peepster Selection. Next month’s prize is a Milk Oblivion Selection.
All ABOARD...
THE GRAND TOUR IS NOW DEPARTING Inspired by this golden age of travel, our Grand Tour is here to take you on a gourmet adventure around Europe… Including 17 different recipes inspired by the foodie cities and regions en route, an exclusive set of six limited edition postcards and a specially drawn map so you can chart your delicious trip. Come with us on a first class chocolate trip taking you from Strawberry Jack and Champagne Truffles, to St Bernard’s Rescue, Chocolate & Churros and Seville Crisp, then on to Amaretti Amore, Tiramisu, Limoncello and so many more. I do hope you can join us!
Last chance to reserve your place for just £28.95 (including delivery) at www.chocs.co.uk/grandtour or call 08444 933 933
SCORING IS EASY & FUN – 4
do it online at www.chocs.co.uk or pop your scorecard in your payment envelope!
Photography by TOM MANNION
Here comes the sun!
Summer Desserts
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he irresistibly uplifting Summer Desserts has been specially created for summertime tasting, sharing and entertaining. Now in its fourth year it features 40 dessert-inspired recipes, including stunning new recipes and four of last year’s highest rated, recreated for a delicious encore.
Plus, you’ll also receive a FREE set of 10 exclusive recipe cards created especially for members.
Reserve the next summer desserts Selection for just £25.00 (plus £3.95 P&P) at www.chocs.co.uk/SUMMER or call 08444 933 933
THE DARK SELECTION
Dark Selections first started popping through members’ letterboxes in spring 2006
The Chocolate Tasting Club was founded in 1998 with the Classic Selection – a balance of milk, dark and white chocolates that appealed to a broad range of members. However, after a few years it became clear that amongst our membership there was a group agitating for something else…
T
hrough their scores, comments and letters, this group became quite insistent – scoring their dark chocolates higher, lavishing praise on them through their comments and some simply wrote to us imploring us to create a selection just for them. And so The All Dark Club was created in the spring of 2006, now simply known as the Dark Selection. The very first Dark Introductory Selection featured such classic dark chocolate pairings as Jamaican rum, Scotch whisky and a dash of warming chilli, as well as single estate chocolate from Ecuador and the dark and brooding notes of tasting batons from the Dominican Republic. And there was even a first showing for Dark Dizzy – a chocolate that has now become one of our most iconic praline recipes. The Dark Selection, our second most popular box behind the Classic, was created to be a dark mirror of the contents of the Classic Selection, with two each of every chocolate and six tasting batons. Now, however, we’re making a small change to that. Coming soon there’ll be three each of nine filled chocolates and four chocolate tasting batons. But don’t 6
worry – there will be exactly the same quantity of chocolate as before! Featuring three each of a smaller number of filled chocolates allows us to focus on those recipes that work best in dark chocolate. It’s an approach that has worked well in our new All Milk Selection and we’re confident it will help take the Dark Selection to even greater success.
VITAL STATISTICS Launch date: 8th February 2006 Share of membership: 12.5% Total number of boxes shipped: 521,773
Why are some of
my chocolates smaller than others? Chocolates, of course, come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but every so often one comes along that prompts a few questions from members.
T
hat question is usually, why is this chocolate smaller than the others? And the answer invariably comes down to one thing, intensity. Recipes with rich, intense or downright pungent flavours just work better in relatively smaller chocolates, otherwise they risk overpowering the palate. It’s a classic case of less is more and a little goes a long way! In much the same way as we could all polish off a good helping of comforting macaroni cheese, but we would be satisfied with only a relatively small serving of rich caviar. And it works in reverse too, because recipes like a milky, mellow praline are just perfect as substantially sized chocolates. They’re like a great big comforting hug. We can see this very principle at work in national styles of filled chocolates. If you were to nip over to Brussels, for example, you’d see a lot of big, billowy, creamy chocolates and experience a lot of mellow, laid back flavours. Zip over the border to Paris though and it’s a different story. There, you’d encounter smaller chocolates made with a lot more dark chocolate and featuring more intense flavours, like punchy coffee.
This less-is-more principle is also at work in our mantra, Less Sugar, More Cocoa. It’s one of our guiding principles by which we use more cocoa and less sugar in recipes wherever and whenever we see the opportunity and it means that we deliver more ‘cocoa satisfaction’ per bite. The result is that we can reach our chocolate bliss point with less. For one of the best examples of this in practice, just compare the satisfaction you get from eating some of our high cocoa 50% milk chocolate with one of the mass market milk chocolate bars that may contain as little as 20% cocoa. And finally, there’s another reason why some chocolates are deliberately small. It’s because they’re designed to be eaten whole and so we put them in smaller shells (like mini domes or mini truffles) to encourage you to pop them in whole. That way you get the full experience of cracking the shell open and letting the filling flood your mouth, while the chocolate shell gently melts and adds its cocoa notes. Just try eating one of our caramel mini domes in such a way and tell us it’s not a good idea!
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art science
cover story – continued
“
where meets
Our chocolatier team has even more scope for innovation and to let their imaginations run wild
Head Chocolatier, Olivier Nicod, explains, “It’s something called ‘cold press chocolate making’, which is essentially a new way for us to make chocolate shells and cups – and just wait until you find out what that allows to do!”
An exciting step It opens the door to a whole new array of fillings and recipes. The nature of the process by which we have been making chocolates until now has meant that the filling must be silky smooth, like a ganache. Using cold press shells and cups means that we can do so much more, like put all sorts of inclusions into them, from biscuits and nuts, to whole pieces of fruit. Then we can add in layers of different fillings too. For a chocolatier the possibilities are endless. Who better to explain the ‘cold press’ technique than Hotel Chocolat Managing Director of Operations, Matt Margereson, “In simple terms, ‘cold press chocolate making’ allows us to create a hollow shell by pressing tempered chocolate between two plates. We’ve created four new and unique moulds for the occasion in ‘pod fossil’, ‘melting circle’, ‘the nut’ and ‘square round’ designs. Next, if the recipe requires it, we transfer the moulds to an inclusion station where we can drop in our fruit, nuts, nibs or any manner of inclusions. Then comes the filling, either in one layer or two and finally we close it with a cap of liquid chocolate, which sets to form the lid, and finally a stylish decoration!”
”
Where art meets science However, this development is all about the combination of art and science, not just the latter. Although the new cold press line gives us the capabilities to greatly expand our repertoire of recipes, we will always rely on the skill, expertise and the palates of our chocolatiers to imagine and create those recipes. In fact, with even more capability to play with, our chocolatier team has even more scope for innovation and to let their imaginations run wild. They have already been experimenting and pushing at the boundaries of what they can do.
The facts and figures Now for those who like this sort of thing, if we were to follow the path of chocolate from scratch we’ve calculated that it will take 57 minutes to go from being tempered chocolate in its liquid form to a filled chocolate, packed into its box. It takes two seconds to create each shell, using the solid copper cold press plates that are silver plated and chilled to –7ºC. The chocolate shells are then cooled using water at –17ºC, so you see, this really is a ‘cold’ press. If you were to unravel the cooling coils, they’d be 433m long! Using a team of between 10 and 12, we can make 36 chocolates at a time. New chocolates made using the cold press technique will be appearing in your boxes soon – look out for Cherry Deluxe, a new Billionaire’s Shortbread and Hazelnut Dream to name but a few.
Clockwise from top left – (1) filling nozzles ready to fill (2) Head Chocolatier, Olivier tasting chocolate (3) a silver coated cold press die used to press the chocolate in the moulds to form the shape of the shells (4) the new Nutty Caramel (5) finished chocolates ready for packing (6) the new Cherry Deluxe (7) Olivier planning his next recipe (8) chocolate moulds on the way to be filled with chocolate (9) the new ‘Melting Circle’ shell mould ready to be filled (10) the new Mzuri Macadamia Madness (11) one of the control panels used to set the chocolate making programmes (12) the new Crème Brulee Brownie.
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scores
Classic Selection – D158 No. Chocolate Name
10/10
Average
1
Cocoa-Nut
Chocolatier Felicity Plimmer
26%
8.3
2
Café Amaretto
Victoria Elliot
22%
8.4
3
Double Pecan Praline
Kiri Kalenko
21%
8.5
4
Grey Goose Truffle
Rhona Macfadyen
20%
8.3
5
Cherry Bombe
Rhona Macfadyen
18%
8.3
10/10
Average 8.4
Cocoa-Nut
DARK Selection – K91 No. Chocolate Name
Chocolatier
1
Double Pecan Praline
Kiri Kalenko
20%
2
Plum Brandy
Kiri Kalenko
20%
8.5
3
Madagascar Praline
Victoria Elliot
18%
8.2
4
Café Amaretto
Victoria Elliot
16%
8.3
5
Cocoa-Nut
Felicity Plimmer
16%
8.0
Double Pecan Praline
Elements Selection – S69 No. Chocolate Name
10/10
Average
1
Crackle & Crisp
Chocolatier Kiri Kalenko
28%
8.4
2
Double Pecan Praline
Kiri Kalenko
26%
8.7
3
Cocoa-Nut
Felicity Plimmer
24%
8.2
4
Love Doodle
Rhona Macfadyen
22%
8.4
5
Mandarin Truffle
Kiri Kalenko
21%
7.7 Crackle & Crisp
purist Selection – p23 No. Chocolate Name
Chocolatier
10/10
Average
1
52% Buena Vista Milk Chocolate
The Tasting Club
52%
8.8
2
Hacienda Iara Praline
Victoria Elliot
51%
8.6
3
65% Alto El Sol, Peru
The Tasting Club
32%
8.5
4
Sour Cherry & Pecan Bûche
Olivier Nicod
28%
8.5
5
66% Sambirano Truffle
Rhona Macfadyen
28%
8.5
ALL MILK Selection – M13 No. Chocolate Name
10
Chocolatier
52% Buena Vista Milk Chocolate 10/10
Average
1
Cocoa-Nut
Felicity Plimmer
21%
8.3
2
Double Pecan Praline
Kiri Kalenko
19%
8.3
3
Pistachio & Honey
Olivier Nicod
17%
7.9
4
Café Amaretto
Victoria Elliot
17%
7.8
5
Grey Goose Truffle
Rhona Macfadyen
16%
7.8
Cocoa-Nut
feedback
Your Tasting Comments! Lemon Liquorice Caramel – Classic I knew this could not work. I was wrong. It was excellent. Jack Drever, Orkney
Bouquet
Brickbat Lemon Liquorice Caramel – Dark Neither one nor the other – lemon to strong, liquorice too weak – not balanced. David Florida-James, Limavady
Metaxa Madness – Classic Amazing! Would consider selling one of my siblings for a years supply. Vanessa, Surrey
Bouquet
Brickbat Macho Meringue – Classic I don’t remember much about this, other than the crunch, needs something to add flavour. Andy Maul, Salisbury
73% Madirofolo Dark Batons – Dark Lovely. The one baton I wouldn't pass on to my team mates in a relay race! Jane Wright, London
Bouquet
Bouquet Cocoa-Nut – Elements Was really surprised by how much I enjoyed this! Lovely texture and flavour. Greta Viertel, Welling
IN THE POSTBAG… Dear Editor The usefulness of Club News As a one-time teacher of development education, I’m as eager to devour your accounts from Ghana & St Lucia as I am your chocolates. Yesterday I was asked by the local Scouts to do an activity for their Founders’ Day programme. There is a marvellous role-play game about fair-trading called ‘Sweet Injustice: the chocolate game by People & Planet’. It fitted my bill ideally. Each boy played a ‘role’ in the process from bean to bar and wore appropriate gear of some kind. Yours was a bowler hat!
To ‘jazz’ it up a bit, I cut out a collage from old Club News so they could see the reality of cocoa farming & I even included a wee bit of your grafting seedlings info to illustrate the skill & effort of the farmers. They seemed quite interested, also with the snippets of history thrown in about the Mesoamericans centuries ago. So thank you for your info. Catriona de Voil
Don’t forget – if we publish your letter you’ll receive your next tasting box FREE! Write to editor@hotelchocolat.co.uk or The Chocolate Tasting Club, Mint House, Royston, SG8 5HL
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ethics
Far left – the varied landscape of Rabot Estate is split up into 16 different areas. Left – cocoa drying. Above – pods being split after harvesting. Below left – beans are turned during fermentation.
Cotes de Rabot? Rabot Estate, our 140-acre cocoa plantation on Saint Lucia is divided up into 16 different areas. They’re called ‘cotes’ but to find out why we have delve back into history. Phil Buckley, Hotel Chocolat Estates Director explains: Take yourself back to Saint Lucia in the mid 18th century when there were clearly no mobile phones and communication was limited by a workforce that was basically illiterate. The Estate Overseer (manager) needed a system to deploy his labour and tell them where he wanted them to work. Hence, the estate was broken up into cotes, which are simply a series of areas on the estate of various sizes.
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The estate overseer would instruct six workers to go to Mamac and harvest the cocoa, tell three others to go to Ti Jardin and collect yams and then to Polka to clear the drains and so on. Also, it is usual to harvest on a two week schedule, so his ‘Ti Boss La’ (foreman) would tell him which cotes were ready for harvest. We still use this system today, it is simple and it works, like all good systems. The cotes are often named after esteemed workers (Cotes Bernadin), or a physical attribute such as Ti Jardin (small garden), a geological feature like Morne Rabot (Rabot Mountain). Each cote is known by the workforce by its location and boundaries, we are currently mapping these. Our development plans also take advantage of this system – we’re planting out each cotes with single genotypes of cocoa, which will allow us to make not just single estate chocolate, but single cotes chocolate in the very near future.
updates
MASTER OF CHOCOLATE Hotel Chocolat Co-founder, Peter Harris, was recently invited to address the MBA students at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School.
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eter was invited to be a guest speaker in a Leadership Seminar Series attended by 140 students, from over 40 different countries. His presentation centred on the success that Hotel Chocolat has enjoyed and he pinpointed innovation, authenticity and ethics as the key principles behind that success. Listening to customers and reacting is also of paramount importance as Peter told the listening students, “It’s not only listening to the customers, it’s quizzing the customers and asking them the right questions so that you understand what they want from you.”
• Pioneers of
Which is something that we know all about here in The Chocolate Tasting Club, where we receive direct feedback every month in the form of your scores and comments. Peter told us, “The talk was very well received and of course I took along a selection of chocolates for the students to taste.”
Chocolate •
Milton Hershey
In America, Hershey is synonymous with chocolate and the man behind it all was Milton Hershey – chocolate pioneer and philanthropist.
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orn in 1857 he left school almost illiterate but spent 20 years making candies and caramels. He sold his company in 1899 for $1 million declaring, “Caramels are just a fad. The chocolate market will be a permanent one.” Hershey was obsessed with creating his own recipes, which he tested and tasted himself. The fact he was a keen cigar smoker may explain the distinctive flavour of Hershey
chocolate! As his company grew, Hershey created a community around his around his factory in Pennsylvania – planning everything down to the layout of tree-lined streets, parks and public transport. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, he embarked on a huge building spree to keep his workers employed, so everyone had wages to take home. Unable to have children of their own, Hershey and his wife established a school for disadvantaged children in 1909. Over 25 years before he died in 1945, he put all of his $60 million fortune into trust for the school, which today looks after over 1,000 children every year. Milton Hershey made one of the great American fortunes and with that success he felt a strong moral obligation to help others and had enormous appetite for doing it.
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news & results
HOTEL CHOCOLAT WINS
THE FORTIFIED SELECTION F11
Last month the Retail Week Awards took place in London. It’s the biggest night in the retail calendar, celebrating the achievements of UK retailing and showcasing the innovation present in the market. Nominated in three categories this year, we’re delighted to announce that Hotel Chocolat took home the award for Speciality Retailer of the Year, beating stiff competition from retailers such as The White Company and Majestic Wine. The judges described the entry as “outstanding” and praised “the energy and care they’ve put into safeguarding the brand and not letting it be diluted”. And in Retail Magazine they went on to highlight the three factors that have made 2012 such a successful one for Hotel Chocolat – branding, innovation and product. Hotel Chocolat Co-founder, Angus Thirlwell said, “There was a selection of distinguished retailers on the shortlist, and the fact that we took home the award is a mark of true recognition for our company and every single person within it. We will continue to innovate and grow as a company and I look forward to the exciting future ahead.”
Our latest quarterly Fortified Selection included a good mix of classics, both modern and traditional. And, as you can see, they mixed very well indeed. Two modern classics, in the shape of Cointreau and Mojito Cocktail, occupied first and second places respectively, while one of the most traditional of all whiskies, the classic Highland Park, finished off the top three in style.
No. Chocolate Name
10/10
Average 8.0
1
Cointreau Cup
K Kalenko
39%
2
Mojito
R Macfadyen
36%
8.4
3
Highland Park Whisky K Kalenko
33%
8.2
4
Rum Truffle
F Plimmer
32%
8.7
5
Chocolate XS
K Kalenko
31%
8.5
6
Pink Champagne
O Nicod
31%
8.7
7
Tawny Port
O Nicod
28%
8.5 8.5
8
St-Remy Brandy
R Macfadyen
27%
9
Kaszebe Vodka
O Nicod
25%
8.4
10 Chambord Surprise
V Elliott
23%
8.3
Cointreau Cup
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Chocolatier
Mojito
Highland Park Whisky
news
PUTTING THE CONCH INTO ROAST+CONCH Roast+Conch from Hotel Chocolat is a concept that brings together all of its activities under one roof – from the cocoa grown at Rabot Estate and making chocolate, to the innovative cocoa-based drinks and food that have been pioneered both here and in Saint Lucia. At Roast+Conch customers can see, smell and taste the entire chocolate making process in action. The moment you enter, you’ll be enveloped in the aromas of roasting cocoa beans and you can see them gently rotating their roaster. But what of the ‘conch’ side to Roast+Conch? After roasting, the beans are winnowed (cracked) to release the cocoa nibs, which are then mixed and conched before finally being tempered and cooled ready to be tasted. So, conching is a rhythmical process of heating and stirring named after the shape of the original machinery invented in 1879, which looked a lot like a conch shell. The purpose is to reduce the particle size of the chocolate, making it smoother, as well as having a mellowing effect on flavour too. Conching can last from a few hours to a few days, depending on the cocoa and the desired result. In general, the longer the conch, the more mellow the chocolate. However, the chocolatier may wish to shorten the conch in order to retain the personality and flavours of rare cocoa. 15
Saint Lucia, Rabot Estate 70% Dark 70g Bar ref 240600 £7
Experience the distinct character and nuances of rare, fine flavour cocoa from the world’s most sought after growing regions – only in our pure chocolate Rabot 1745 collection.
NEW COLLECTION NOW AVAILABLE
hotelchocolat.com