This Saturday I went to the Northwest Chocolate Festival in Seattle.
I had the opportunity to handle and feel cocoa seeds. I was also able to see the insides of cocoa seeds at different stages of fermentation from brown to purple.
I also sat in on a talk about cacao and the harvesting of cacao. Here I was able to actually taste the membrane of a cacao seed. This membrane is what most cacao farms taste and not the actual chocolate that comes from their cacao seeds. It has a very pleasant taste, almost sweet with a little bit of citrus taste to it. The thing that really got me was the membrane texture itself. It was almost like you were placing someone else’s lugie in your mouth. I tried very hard to get past that part, but unfortunately I could not and ended up having to spit it out.
I was also able to go to a cheese and chocolate pairing. I tasted several different types of chocolate from Theo’s Chocolate, 85% single origin dark chocolate, 70% sea salt, and 45% milk chocolate. I then tasted several local cheeses, Mt. Towsend camembert, Twin Sisters Creamery blue cheese, and Ferndale fontina. I was then able to pair some chocolate with cheese. I first had a 70% dark orange Theo chocolate with Beechers New Women jerk cheddar. The second pairing was a Theo pear balsamic truffle with the Mt. Towsend camembert. The last pairing was a Theo ghost chili caramel with Cheery Valley Dairy coho cheese.
I was able to talk to many companies that are bean to bar, and even some that were bean to bar and single origin. When you tasted several different types of single origin chocolates you can pick up on the different tastes of the cocoa that was being used from each region.
Photos by: Valerie Dingman