Evaluating Chocolate: the What, the Why, and the How | #PSC 215
OVERVIEW: Episode 215 of #PodSaveChocolate takes a look back, and forward, at how chocolate is evaluated – and asks the question, “Have we been doing it wrong all these years?”
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Episode 215
Thinking about how to evaluate chocolate has been a part of my ChocolateLife for nearly 30 years.
When I decided to become a professional chocolate critic in early 1994, I had no idea what I needed to learn, where I could go to learn what I needed, or who I could learn from. When I started my search I took a look at wine education.
After all, pairing wine and chocolate is a thing people do, wine is made from fermented grape juice and chocolate is made from fermented cocoa beans.
I seriously considered how I could adapt the WSET (Wine & Spirit Education Trust) methodology to chocolate but quickly dropped that avenue of exploration
Looking back, I now realize that there are at least three aspects to consider individually and severally, and at least one of them has never been seriously addressed for chocolate.
Unfortunately for chocolate – and chocolate fans – the aspect that has never been seriously addressed is the foundation upon which the other two necessarily must be built. This lack of consideration is at the heart of the lack of coherence across chocolate judging regimes.
Those three aspects are:
- Classification
- Education
- Evaluation and Judging
Over the past two years or so I have undertaken a systematic review of the classification (e.g., types, styles, other descriptors), education (what and how are you teaching evaluation skills), and judging frameworks and methodologies (what and how do you judge) for:
- Beer
- Wine
- Spirits
- Coffee
- Balsamic vinegar
- Cheese
- Chocolate
The goals for my review are to understand:
- Where the different methodologies are the same.
- Where they differ.
- What is chocolate doing (or not doing) compared with the others.
- How to take the strongest elements from the others and apply them to chocolate.
- How to avoid the mistakes they make
… to aid and guide the processes of developing comprehensive frameworks and methodologies for chocolate classification, education, evaluation, and judging – the what, they why, and the how of each aspect of the framework.
The TL;DR
This episode of PodSaveChocolate will present some of the challenges I am working through, informed by several other approaches, especially those from IICCT (International Institute of Chocolate and Cacao Tasting), ICA (International Chocolate Awards), and Beanstalkr. Among other topics will be the utility and application of controlled vocabularies (flavor lexicons).
[L]: IICCT; [R]: Beanstalkr
Future Episodes
no confirmed date
Episode Hashtags
#cocoa #cacao #cacau
#chocolate #chocolat
#PodSaveChoc #PSC
#LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife
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Clay Gordon
Episodes 201-300 (links to older PSC archives are in the top nav).
Clay Gordon