UPDATED :: TheChocolateLifeLIVE – Cocoa Runners’ Spencer Hyman

I didn’t remember when I first became aware of Cocoa Runners and Spencer Hyman (I looked it up – the earliest record I have was in an email from back in 2013), but I do remember the first time I heard him share his views in front of an audience. That was at the 2018 Chocoa conference in Amsterdam when he and I were both panelists during a Chocolate Makers Forum.

In that presentation Spencer demonstrated an understanding of the craft chocolate market from a seller’s perspective, covering aspects of the realities of the market that I had not heard from anyone else. He’s also a great panel partner because he knows a lot and has thought, a lot, about the issues involved, cares deeply, and can think on his feet, addressing questions posed by the audience and other panelists using cogent and compelling arguments.

In the years since, Cocoa Runners has become the place in the UK/EU to go online to purchase curated selections of craft chocolate. Cocoa Runners is also a leader in all forms of consumer and professional education on topics in craft chocolate – education that is accessible to a global audience.

I finally had a chance to participate in a tasting session delivered by Spencer at the recent Chocolat Portugal festival held in Porto.

In addition to a fabulous selection of chocolates the participants were introduced to a number of other activities to see if any of us were supertasters (this information would be incorporated into our impressions of the chocolates) as well as to see how our senses interact and affect taste perception. The tasting mat for the evening is incorporated in the featured image and is below for a closer perusal.

One fact I found particularly interesting about The Chocolate Tasting Wave mat was the participation in its formulation by James Hoffman, whose views on coffee in all its various facets I enjoy watching on YouTube.

Please join what I know what will be a wide-ranging conversation about craft chocolate – with questions and comments from participants in the live stream being posed to Spencer.

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Resources Mentioned

Savouring, Slurping, Spitting, and Saliva

Savouring, slurping, spitting, and saliva are all tools and methods we can use to fully appreciate the complex flavours of chocolate.

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Taste, Super-tasters, Flavour, Texture, and More

At Cocoa Runners, we’re obsessed with exploring taste and flavour, and sharing our thoughts an findings. We’ve written elsewhere about the relationship between taste and flavour, and how texture and astringency also play a role. But the flavour potential of craft chocolate is so vast, that there are…

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Creators, Curators, Connoisseurs

With curation; you put yourself in someone else’s hands. You trust curators to enthuse and delight you with stuff you couldn’t easily search, and find, on your own. It’s about going on a journey more than executing a transaction.

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TheChocolateLife page live event

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