Get into the Tu B’Av spirit: Shimmy in white & have some chocolate.

Image: OSU Special Collections & Archives

Tu B’Av was a joyous holiday in the days of the Temple in Jerusalem, marking the beginning of the grape harvest. In modern times, it has become a romantic Jewish holiday, often compared to Valentine’s Day, and has been said to be a “great day for weddings, commitment ceremonies, renewal of vows, or proposing”. Also, “It is a day for romance, explored through singing, dancing, giving flowers…”

And giving chocolate, too, obviously.

If you are celebrating love this week, or courting a Hebrew speaking lady like myself, consider these gift options:

Perfume: A Classic Choice, With Added Cacao Notes

Leading Brands such as Missoni, Valentino have created perfumes based on cacao aroma notes.

Natural, artisanal perfumiers such as Demeter are using cocoa butter and essence to make some lovely seductive scents.

“The scent of dark chocolate is full, warm and slightly spicy” – Jo Malone.

You can also find scented candles that spread calm and the cacao aroma at home. Let the sweet aroma spread in your room, to inspire a mood for love.

Chocolate Massage

Inside the cacao fruit (pod), there are almond-like nuclei from which chocolate is produced – those cocoa solids you see consisting 70% or more of good quality chocolate. But around the seeds there is a soft white material, from which the cacao butter is produced. Cacao butter has few flavor residues, but mainly has qualities, similar to coconut oil. It is used in natural care products such as body lotion and bath oil. Cacao contains natural nutrients and antioxidants that can infuse the skin with all their beneficial properties. Some therapists add ground cacao nibs to add an element of cleansing body scrub.

With a Chocolate Massage you can indulge yourself with as much as you like, guilt-free. Therapists claim it reinvigorates the body and mind.

You can Do It Yourself, and get a kit for chocolate massage, that includes scented candles or incense sticks, and a cacao body butter. This combination will help you to create a true massage atmosphere for your significant other.

Can you imagine your loved one laying smothered in chocolate-y concoction from neck to foot?

Create a chocolate-y atmosphere

A Sweet Morning Treat

The Aztec emperor Montezuma II would drink enormous quantities of chocolate before visiting one of his many women. The Aztec women would not be given anything containing cacao, ever.

So why not use another ancient ritual – Tu B’Av – to rectify this historical injustice?

After a night of dancing in a vineyard, wearing her white dress, pamper your personal empress by bringing her a nice cup of cocoa to bed.

A chocolate macaroon = “Je t’aime”

A Ticket to Paris

Paris is the perfect place for both Love and Chocolate. Follow Ika’s address book to visit award-winning chocolatiers in Paris – in the Marais, Montmartre and Saint Germain.

Enter the beautiful havens of creativity and luxurious indulgence, then take a stroll along the river Seine, to get some fresh air. Look at the water and the trees and savour the memories of your sensual adventures at the Paris chocolateries. Then, head back again into the bustling streets for some more sumptuous pralines, until the moment you really must go back home.

It seems like there is no place on the globe where people don’t love and celebrate chocolate.

Even if you just feel like browsing festivals’ photos online, we’ve created a long list of chocolate events worldwide,
that are worthy of entering your bucket list.

The obvious place to start a trip is Europe, but as we’ll find later, the natural starting point is actually a small island in Venezuela. We’ll get there, too for a visit at the Church of Cacao.

Travel from classic bonbons to bean-to-bar trade fairs in 2018!

Europe

Our first stop is:

Perugia, Italy

October 2018

Eurochoclate is the largest chocolate festival in Europe, held since 1993.

It attracts tens of thousands visitors each year, usually during October.

Besides many free tasting opportunities, Eurochoclate is also famous for its chocolate sculptures.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

24 – 25 February, 2018

Chocoa is 4 days of chocolate celebration, that puts an emphasis on the ‘bean to bar’ trend.
This means that you can participate in many lectures about sustainable cacao growing, and single origin chocolate making.

You can also expect a lot of the usual chocolate tasting, and trust the Dutch that beer tasting and drinking are also on the agenda.

Budapest, Hungary

16-18 September, 2018

Sweet Days festival celebrates chocolate, and candies in general. It’s more of a family and fun event. You can enjoy street food bars, live concerts, and kid-friendly programs. It sounds a bit like a Christmas market, only in better weather.

Brussels, Belgium

2-4 March, 2018

Belgium is an important destination to chocolate lovers all year round.

You can find over two thousand chocolate shops, and several chocolate museums.

The Salon du Chocolat is an international chocolate festival, that takes place in Brussels, as well as other major cities (we’ll get there, too).

Over 150 world renowned chocolatiers and pastry chefs from over 15 countries exhibit their exquisite creations.

You can spend a full day strolling around stalls, tastings, participating in workshops and lectures.

Special works of art made ​​of chocolate are created exclusively for the exhibition.

London, UK

October 2018

London’s Chocolate Show is a huge chocolate festival held in London every October.

It is a major event for professionals – a great place to learn about the most innovative techniques and industry trends.

The Show is part of the Salon du Chocolat organisation, so in a way you have a choice:

Go to London, Brussels, Paris, or many other places on the Salon’s calendar;
it’s a traveling festival that passes through 15 cities around the world but its annual highlight is in Paris.

Paris!

October 2018

Salon du Chocolat, Paris, France – has been taking place since 1994.

Over 500 exhibitors present at this conference. The agenda is full of lectures, workshops, tastings and even recipes.

And the best thing – it’s in Paris!

Which also means that a fashion show is held for the world’s haute couturiers and chocolatiers.

Asia

The Michelin guide has published a fascinating article about “The Rise of Southeast Asian Chocolatiers”.

It gives you a better perspective about the way Asian consume and produce (yes!) chocolate.

Tokyo has also been hosting the Salon du Chocolat in the past seven years:

Japanese culture has a very high esteem of the art of chocolate, and they manifest know-how and connoisseurship.

Japanese chocolatiers like Sadaharu Aoki have won the most prestigious international awards, and opened their own boutiques in Paris, too.

So if you’re up to some serious travelling, and tasting exotic flavours in your chocolate,
head straight to Tokyo Salon du Chocolat during 20 – 28 January, 2018.

Australia

August 2018

Ika fell in love with chocolate making in Sidney, Australia, of all places.

Aussies are massive chocolate lovers and are quite knowledgeable when it comes to artisanal chocolate.

Smooth festival is a great event for professionals and tourists alike, offering a Lindt Lounge, and a Callebaut Test Kitchen.

To make itself attractive to locals, the organisers make a point of offering many vegan options.

New York and other cities around the USA

The Chocolate Expo is held annually in NYC and then travels throughout the United States – visit their website to check out 2018 exact dates.

San Francisco, CA

8-9 September, 2018

In the bay area, an annual festival held in Ghirardelli Square is very popular with locals.

The veteran chocolate manufacturer Ghirardelli takes over its surroundings, offering demonstrations, tastings and many live events.

It’s not a major crossing for international industry professionals, but hundreds of local artisanal makers and chef-patissiers from California exhibit what we’re sure is both yummy and cool.

Continue your trip and go down south to Latin America – a very important source for the chocolate industry.

The land of cacao growing

As you are probably quite aware, chocolate is made from cacao beans, that grow inside cacao pods, in very few countries.

In Peru, producers try to infuse more meaningful connection with manufacturers and chocolate makers, through the Salon del Cacao Lima.

It has been held since 2010, offering chocolate making demonstrations, business roundtables, and many other events relating to single-origin chocolate.

Other chocolate festival in Latin America:

Equador, September 2018

Mexico, October 2018

Venezuela, November 2018

It is said that the best quality cacao beans grow in Venezuela.

Cacao Venezuela is held in cooperation with the Italian commerce ministry.

The major attraction is a bean-to-bar laboratory, alongside the usual tasting bars and lounges.

The Chocolate Church in Chuao

We recommend visiting the village of Chuao, a small village located in the northern coastal range of Venezuela.

The beautiful church in the town square hold a special thanks ceremony to San Juan for a good cacao harvest.

According to Wikipedia, experts agree that the high quality of the cacao beans of Chuao is not only because the genetic varietal that exists in the plantation but because the intense work of La Empresa Campesina of Chuao during the pre harvest, harvest and post harvest.

Photos: Wikimedia, by Flickr users Electrolito & Veronidae

It’s important to get to these places and truly understand how chocolate tastes, and how it is made.

There is so much you can learn in trips to cacao farms, watching the production process, tasting the mass that comes out of the conching machine – it’s nothing like the chocolate you buy at the shop.

Another reason to go is to learn more about the people Seth Godin has named

“those who are creating the raw material for the magic we consume daily.”

“Worldwide, tons of cacao is grown, millions of bars are sold… But one number is astonishingly small: the amount the typical farmer makes in income. For many, it’s only $3 a day. They are among some of the poorest and least respected workers in the world.”
Seth Godin, Meaningful work

They certainly deserve our interest and respect.

I was very much inspired by this video, created by my favorite chocolate manufacturer Valrhona
– documenting a trip to a plantation in the Dominican Republic:

I am definitely looking forward to a year of flavourful new adventures.

Would you devote an entire year for travelling to chocolate festivals around the world?

Wishing you the sweetest year ever!

Ika

This month, while working towards the 2017 International Chocolate Awards winners ceremony, we share some tips and behind-the-scenes insight, to help you judge the quality of chocolate, just like the jury members of international competitions, and writers of guides like Le Club des Croqueurs de Chocolat.

Professional Chocolate Tasting Experts

From these guides you can learn which chocolate ateliers around the world make the best pralines and chocolate desserts.
You can also go kinda crazy, and obviously very hungry, from reading the wonderfully crafted reviews.
These reviews can teach you the key judgment criteria  – because taste is just one element of quality chocolate (yes indeed!).

Le Club des Croqueurs de Chocolat, publishes the leading guide to the most remarkable chocolate in the world.
They rate the top chocolatiers in France, Belgium and globally (ÉTRANGER category).
The Club is over 30 years old, and has 150 members, most of them pastry chefs, restaurateurs, journalists. Some are experts in other feields, like historians and photographers. What they all share is a demonstrable passion for chocolate. It is a close-knit organisation that take itself – and chocolate – very seriously.
They gather for tasting every other month, each time they focus on a different theme, such as chocolates flavored with tea, fruit and alcohol pralines, etc.

A rising force in the chocolate world is George Bernardini, who publishes The Chocolate Tester – The Reference Standard.

Bernardini writes personal reviews of over 4,000 chocolates, made by 550 brands from over 70 countries.
He ranks chocolatiers from all over the world, awarding them with “Cocoa Pods”
–  from 1 to 6 Pods, like Michelin Guide awards ‘Stars’ restaurants internationally.

The “Eurovision” Contest of The Chocolate World

A major event for the chocolate business is The International Chocolate Awards.
The organisation is based in London, where the annual Chocolate Show takes place every autumn.

The competition has started taking place also in France, Peru, and Japan, as more and more people gain knowledge in the art of chocolate, and the significance of terroir.

The organisation Founder and Judging Director is Martin Christy, also Founder and Editor of fine chocolate review website Seventy%. His purpose and life’s work is to raise awareness of the quality and sourcing of chocolate, being “a complex, ancient, beneficial and spiritual food”.

Christy was joined by Dr. Maricel E. Presilla, a culinary historian, author and chef specializing in the cuisines of Latin America and Spain. Her book The New Taste of Chocolate: A Cultural and Natural History of Cacao with Recipes is treasured by all leading chocolatiers.

Monica Meschini, the celebrated Italian chocolate/tea taster and Sommelier, completes the founding trio of the Internbational Chocolate Awards.

What judges are mainly looking for is subtlety of taste and textures.

The Grand Jury members taste the competing chocolates anonymously. They are served pralines in small cups, with the description of the sample.

They do a lot of tasting in a very short time, of hundreds of chocolates from all over the world.

According to the press, there were more than 1,000 products registered for the event, including more than 650 chocolate bars.
They won’t get an ounce of pity from us, though.

After they taste, they give a score from 1 to 5 in four areas:

1. Quality of the ingredients
2. Preparation and technique
3. Creativity (and innovation)
4. Taste.

Judges give positive and negative comments considering those categories. Then they count the scores and determine the winning chocolates in each category.

Chocolate tasting and rating – how to judge chocolate like a pro?

With your eyes, your nose, and then your tongue.

First, look attentively:

Is the shape perfect? Too perfect to be hand-made?
Investigate further – is the decoration elegant, clean, and does it dispense some clues about the filling?
Can you see the lightness of the chocolate artist’s hand on this praline?

Before taking it into your mouth, stop over at the tip of your nose: bring the chocolate close to your nose, and smell it (yes, just like you start with wine). Quality chocolate have hints of flavours, that originate in the ground where the cocoa was grown (like fruit, and even smoky Papua New Guinea dried lava), and from the manufacturing process.

Finally, place the chocolate on the tongue, and let it melt slowly, naturally. While it melts on your tongue, try to recognize all the flavours you feel.
Search for flavour nuances.

Pralines Tasting

When tasting a chocolate praline, take only half a bite and look at the filling of the half that’s left on your finger.
Look at the layers, the textures of the filling.
Pay special attention to the thickness of the praline’s coating layer. If it’s slender, you can be sure you are tasting a superior quality praline.

Between different bites, it’s good to drink some water and even eat something neutral like bread, to refresh your taste buds (like some people do when they eat Sushi).

Low quality industrial chocolate and pralines will have familiar candy-like chemical flavors. You might recognize the taste of commercial vanilla extract, or feel there is too much sugar added.

The International Awards and winners are presented before a huge audience at the London Chocolate Show. This year it will take place under the beautiful art-deco glass arched ceiling at Olympia, 13-15 October.

In next month’s post Ika will share stories from the London show, as well as photos from the world’s most fabulous chocolate event – Le Salon du Chocolat 2017 in Paris (of course).