One of my great passions in life is tasting and discovering new and exciting dark chocolates.
In fact, I enjoy it so much that I have decided to write a series of articles here on my personal experiences with dark chocolates from around the world.
Therefore, if you are a chocolate lover like myself, I invite you to come on board and let us take this journey together to everlasting ethereal chocolate bliss! First off, there are boundless tastes, textures and flavors when it comes to dark chocolate.
Much like fine wine with the added element of texture, but without so much variance in smell, chocolates range from the sweet fruity to the bitter chalky - from the smooth creamy to the rich bold.
And, from the flat one dimensional to the explosive full body.
These wide ranging characteristics are not by accident.
It all starts with the cocoa bean.
Cocoa trees grow only in tropical regions of Asia, Central America, Africa, and South America, within about 15 degrees of the equator.
Then before cocoa can be made into chocolate, it has to go through several steps of processing.
Cocoa processing includes converting the beans into liquor, nibs, butter, cake and powder.
Chocolate manufacturing includes the blending and refining of cocoa butter, cocoa liquor, and various ingredients, such as vanilla, almond and sugar.
In the case of dark chocolate, milk solids are excluded from this process, which gives it the added health benefits so touted by health experts.
In this first of many articles in this series, I am going to start with one of my favorites - "Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Premium Bar".
I chose this particular chocolate bar to start with because it is an all purpose bar (i.
e.
both for eating and cooking) and is readily accessible at most grocery stores.
It has a rich deep flavor with a hint of vanilla.
Plus, its texture is extremely smooth.
I give it a 9 on a 1 to 10 score (i.
e.
10 being the best).