Tasting Notes – Introduction

I am not at all a chocolate connoisseur but I am quite capable of having an intensely intimate experience with chocolate, milk (even confectionery) chocolate at that.

Let me back up. I am one of those people who loves steak…just about well done (ok medium well) so I have experienced my fair share of disdain from those who call themselves true steak lovers who die a little bit inside whenever I order a fine cut of meat this way. So I try not to order a steak in a posh restaurant where a chef might be offended by my request to burn his meat. If I must eat steak in such an establishment I try to order it medium (if they will even allow me that!), eat around the edges, then take it home to cook it properly!

I’m also not much of a wine drinker preferring my taste buds to be tantalized by anything sweet, even if that means horrendously cheap so-called wine, and white wine at that. So I don’t pretend to know or like wine.

But I do love my chocolate and seeing how my preference is for milk chocolate I do not allow those who prefer dark chocolate to tell me I do not know chocolate just on that basis. Non, au contraire! This time I will not be insulted and I will not slink away into nothingness. From the fresh beans in the cocoa pod to the hot drink, to the bar form, to fine chocolates and to confectionery chocolate, I am passionate about chocolate. But, and this is a big but, you won’t see me eating chocolate ice cream and I don’t care for chocolate cake, nor chocolate syrup, nor chocolate flavoured anything, and for the longest time, I wouldn’t touch a brownie.

That said, in the past few years, with more money in hand, I have allowed myself to purchase expensive chocolate (that is not your usual supermarket varieties) in a mission to explore the excitingly wild world of chocolate.

Chocolate really is a fantastic discovery. I love that there is such a wide range of chocolate out there each with its own mood and each able to elicit a different pleasure. Like music in a way, really, if you think about it.

I only need to learn to taste it with all senses engaged and not simply eat it. This here is my adventure.