It just occurred to me their are chocolate "designers." Someone's got to do it.
I read about a guy tasting chocolate varieties and rating them for flavor. So I started craving chocolate like mad and couldn't get it out of my mind. I went to the store and found some really dark chocolate that's 85% and 86% cacao/cocoa. I've never tried this stuff because, 1. it costs too much and 2. It's not Kit Kat or Twix, or my new passion, Ferrero Rocher.
I found Lindt and Ghiradelli were the only choices. I was hoping for a Hershey's dark but did not find any. The package says the Ghiradelli was made in California, the Lindt in France and imported.
What I discovered upon my first sample of the Ghiradelli, was that it's not like any chocolate I have ever tasted. This is not Mr. Goodbar here. It's apparently getting very close to the purity of the cocoa bean transformed into a more pure form. The flavor of the Ghiradelli seemed be absent when it first hit my tasetebuds. It was getting close to bitter, with a harshness that was conflicting with my expectations. After the first taste, I felt disappointed, that something was lacking.
I took a sip of water to cleanse the pallette and went on to the Lindt. I read the ingredients on the back before tasting it to see if I could get a feel for what better to expect. It says there is butter, sugar and vanilla beans in it as well as the chocolate and cocoa powder. I tasted it and it was snappy and intense. My brain is still expecting very sweet milk chocolate, but it's grabbing at straws and coming up short. I let myself just experience it and try to accept what it was rather than what I hoped for.
Immediately I am reminded of wine tasting, in that you don't bring expectations to the wine, you experience what it is in that moment, with no comparison to anything else, being with it as the wine flows through your mouth. This is where this very dark chocolate is heading. If you want a candy bar or peanut butter cup, this is not going to satisfy that craving. Instead it goes more to what the actual flavor of the bean is, uncovered and much more pure like a nice dry red wine, more naked if you will.
After a few minutes I went back to the beginning and tried the Ghiradelli again. There is tons of flavor this time, intense dark notes bordering on bitterness but hanging just shy, chocolate without the sugar infusion to disguise flavor, the bean is right up front and hitting me in the middle of my pallette, not sweet, not bitter, just there. Overall a nicer experience. The Lindt was offering a different, snappy feel to it. A little more on edge but not sweet, maybe a little on the bitter side with a slight sour taste. Interesting.
I feel that as a first foray into more pure chocolates, it has been totally new, undiscovered territory. I can't see myself consuming this kind of chocolate like I would for that sweet milky smooth sugar high. This is an alternate path, certainly less traveled. I may try some of these with wine. Certainly the afterthought I have with these darker varieties is to drop the expectation, be in the moment and let it speak for itself. Like being with a nice dry wine.
As a design note on the packaging, I suspect both companies use the same design firm. The box and art layout is very similar. Doesn't say what company did the design and printing though. But I will give credit that the packaging made me want to buy it, it costs more but the art is more sophisticated with great silver reflective printing and gold colors to make it feel more expensive. You get 10 more grams of chocolate in the Lindt bar for the same price to boot.
