- Never taste when hungry or full.
- Close your eyes to enhance concentration and focus. Always taste chocolate at room temperature.
- Smell the chocolate before tasting. The sense of smell is the most direct of all senses and it deeply affects our sense of taste. Use small “bunny niffs”, as it takes approximately 15 – 30 seconds for our nose to recover after each sniff.
- Make sure that the chocolate is in contact with all areas of your mouth, tongue, from the front to the back and on the sides to activate the maximum number of taste buds.
- While the chocolate is melting in your mouth, close your eyes and take a deep breath in through your nose before swallowing. Breathe out after swallowing. This allows the aroma of the chocolate to pass through the retro nasal passage twice, thereby maximizing flavor impact.
- Flavor occurs in waves in your mouth – sweetness within 2 seconds; bitterness after about 5 seconds; salty and sour within 3-9 seconds.
- When chocolate melts in your mouth, you will notice a cooling sensation as energy is absorbed with the chocolate’s change from solid to liquid state.
- The energy derived from cocoa butter is 21/2 times that of a pure carbohydrate.
- Chocolate melts exactly at body temperature creating a unique velvety smooth “melt-in-your-mouth” texture (aka mouthfeel) unlike any other food substance.
Chocolate Tasting Terms/Vocabulary
Appearance
- Glossy, Shiny, Dull, Sugar Bloom, Fat Bloom, Crazing (cracks)
- Smooth, Creamy, Thick, Greasy, Gritty, Grainy, Powdery, Chalky, Flat, Sticky, Coarse
