How to Enjoy the Taste, Aroma and Flavor of Craft chocolate

The short answer is however you want and wherever you want.We believe craft chocolate should be a companion on every journey and enjoyed along the way.

As society grows more aware and even critical of ingredients and the processes surrounding food, its important that healthy does not taste like dirt...unless that's your thing. So lets start with ingredients and take away some of the guilt we are going to enjoy. When it comes to good chocolate, in my opinion, the fewer the ingredients the better. Organic does not always translate to good or healthy. Read the label and pull out that supercomputer in your pocket and research anything in that ingredients list. Here at Last Resort Chocolate, we strive for the best of ingredients. We only use cacao and vanilla grown on Kauai and processed on our farm to insure the highest possible quality. We have selected an organic cane sugar for a less processed ingredient and allow on our laboratory grade equipment to refine the sugar and chocolate together. The organic cocoa butter we selected is primarily used to facilitate better movement of our ingredients through our equipment to ensure proper processing and normally composes only 1-2% of our recipes. Good ingredients matter and have a profound affect on how you enjoy any food with craft chocolate no exception.

Growing up I understood three types of chocolate: The kind you could eat by itself, the kind that covered a mystery core and the one that could not be eaten without being added to a food. Lets start with the easy one...the kind of chocolate that must be eaten once added to food.

Mom ran a tight kitchen and in the lazy susan was the staple 1 pound tin of Hersey's Baking Chocolate. Intrigued by the smell of whatever concoction Mom had cooked, I was one of the kids who stuck a spoon in there and thought I was in for a treat. Not exactly what I bargained for. The bitter powder quickly contaminated my grin and made it impossible to enjoy or hide from suspecting adults or curious siblings. It was best added to a cake or brownie mix and enjoyed with some flour, sugar, a few eggs and baked.

A holiday boxed, mystery core enrobed in a chocolate was an adventure a young child learned to embark on with the greatest caution. Somewhere a chocolate covered caramel crossed my palate and I loved it. Texture, sweet blending of flavors.....delicious. Then great disappointment...I remember discovering that not all 'cores' were caramel and I became highly suspicious of anything disguised in a chocolate coating. It certainly could have a negative impact on your tastebuds as a kid. I remember Andes' Candies made exploration of enrobed chocolate a little safer when you could see the green minty addition to the chocolate. And then there were the labels hidden somewhere on the packaging. My limited vocabulary usually curtailed any risks I would dare take...what's a ganache anyway?

The chocolate that you could eat by itself was for sure a Hersey Bar or Hersey Kiss. Nestle semi-sweet morsels were a treat to sneak when baking chocolate chip cookies. If the bag of unused morsels was returned to the lazy susan, I might have snacked on a couple here and there. Carefully though as Mom always had a sharp mental inventory of her kitchen supplies and that was a line even the bravest of adventurers would not dare cross without the ever elusive permission.

Since enjoying everything chocolate, which includes tasting everything chocolate, it quickly becomes obvious that everything chocolate is very similar to everything wine, everything coffee, everything whiskey or everything tobacco. The best of chocolate should be craft chocolate. Flavor, palate and pairings equate to a chocolate for every instance. There are a few ways to get a little more out of your chocolate. So many flavors just by itself even before you begin to add any additional ingredients, inclusions, or zests.

Properly tempered chocolate melts just over 93°F which coincidentally is just under the temperature of one's mouth. For this reason, it's best if you store your chocolate in a cool place, allow it to warm to a room temperature before enjoying. This allows the chocolate to begin delivering flavors as it readily melts on your palate. Allow the piece of chocolate to melt on your tongue as opposed to chewing. As it melts, allow your tongue to move the chocolate around your mouth. Enjoy the 'feel' and texture of the melting chocolate and allow that to contribute to the experience. Your taste buds pick up on 5 distinct sensations we know as taste: Sweet, Sour, Bitter, Salty and Savory. Taking a trip to the world of a sommelier, we learn about retro-olfaction. This is an introduction of aroma into the experience. As the chocolate melts and is distributed throughout your mouth, remember to exhale through your nose allowing your sense of smell to detect aromas being released from the chocolate. This is where more complex sensations arrive such as fruity, floral, and earthy. The combination of the tastes and aromas by your brain compile the experience described more accurately as flavor.

And there you have it. Enjoy that craft chocolate. It doesn't have to stop there though. Now that you have a way to better understand the flavor experience, feel free to begin to pair some chocolate with your next cup of coffee or glass of wine or Glencairn of whiskey or bourbon. We would love to hear from you and your experiences in flavor. From tastings and pairings, to recipes or the small piece of motivation from one of our packages you share with your emergency contact on that next adventure.

That is how to enjoy the taste, aroma and overall flavor of craft chocolate.