Decadent Dark Chocolate

I have always been a chocolate loving girl. A classic picture of me as a child is sitting in an amusement ride at Hershey Park with my face smeared with remnants of Hershey Kisses. My parents made the mistake of offering me chocolate flavored Ovaltine when I was only a toddler. After tasting the sensual flavors that tickled my taste buds, I refused to drink any glass of milk without my delectable chocolate. Since then the love affair has never ceased.

For a long time, my preference was always milk chocolate. The milkier, the better, I always thought. I held this belief up until the day of my chocolate tasting assignment for my Professional Chocolatier Certification Program. I had hand picked my chocolate choices from the local Whole Foods Market, with a wide range of dark specialty couvertures.

My test subjects ranged in couvertures from France, Belgium and Venezuela. 

The first one from Venezuela, named El Rey, was especially potent in bitterness. I had mistakenly picked up bittersweet dark chocolate and my taste buds were not accustomed to the strength of flavor. However, the texture was certainly an even melt in your mouth feeling. And the aroma was so strong; my test subjects all could smell the powerful aroma before I even moved the test pieces into the room they were sitting.

Next, the Belgium favorite, Callebaut was passed around. This time I had chosen right, and it was the semisweet dark chocolate I had intended on getting. The flavor reminded me of upscale chocolate chips from the grocery store. The taste though was truly delicious. The complexity of dark chocolate was starting to become clear as I ventured to roll the chocolate with my tongue.