The Wackiness of Fresh & Preserved Chocolate
Today I received the question, “how does the preserved chocolate taste in comparison to the fresh?” I know there are some out there that question the whole “fresh” concept, and throw on top of that the “preserved” bars and they probably think I’m out of my mind. Well they’re right, I am out of my mind but for different reasons, that aside, there really was only one clear way to answer that question. So I headed to the climate controlled room they’re stored in and grabbed one to try. Here’s what I found out:
Now it’s open and the aroma hits me immediately. That is the first sign that I’m on the right path. As I’m writing this, it’s still lingering from the half of the bar I’ve yet to eat. There really is no way to describe the feeling I have, possibly gratifying. I truly have every intention on providing the best quality chocolate that you have ever tasted. The concepts of “fresh” and “preserved” are not some clever marketing gimmicks dreamed up by an MBA in an office far away, this is just who I am. If you’re not blown away and completely satisfied, neither am I.
Okay, enough of that, now that my palate was awakened and eager to taste I opened up the bar. The next important sign is visual. Did it retain that shine from a perfectly tempered chocolate bar? As you can see from the next set of photos, we’re good.
As you know, there is no real way to taste test the same batch of chocolate fresh side-by-side with the preserved bars nearly two months later, so I won’t even go there. My palate is refined somewhat, but my memory, not so much. The two key things for me though are flavor and texture. Texture is one that really can be off-putting with old chocolate. This bar is still as silky smooth as it was the day it was made and though I can’t compare the flavor to fresh, it is still outstanding. What else would I say, right? I know there are doubters and we’ll see where these bars are in another month, 6 months and even a year. If they’re still around that long. So try one yourself.
Alright, now we’re at the how and why part of the fresh and preserved chocolate concept. As in any food, fresh is preferred, right? Of course, so why not chocolate? As I’ve mentioned in previous posts that once cacao is roasted, the race is on to preserve the best flavors developed in the process. I skip the aging of chocolate because in my opinion, it’s bogus. Two things affect the flavor and quality of chocolate, air and light…wait make that three and add temperature. Chocolate goes stale in what is referred to as bloom. I won’t go in to the scientific mumbo-jumbo but you’ve probably seen chocolate that’s gray and when you bite in to it, it has a texture more like crackers. So you can imagine the horror I experienced when I did a little quality control checking on my chocolate in stores and came across a tin of drops that looked like this:
Yes, that looks pretty bad. Now granted this tin has been sitting around here for about 6 months since, but I can assure you that it looked no better back then. I put the chocolate bar I’m currently eating next to it for comparison.
Here’s another shot of a bar I bought that had the same issue.
If you buy a lot of chocolate, I’m sure you’ve seen this and probably went ahead and ate it because, well, it’s chocolate! I could go on and on but the fact of the matter was that when I saw my own chocolate look like that and thought that someone could have bought it, I knew I had to make a change. I’m sure some did buy it like that and they’ll probably never buy my chocolate again.
In closing, I hope you can see that all the wackiness that is “fresh chocolate” and “preserved chocolate” isn’t just a clever marketing tactic for me. It’s the most important thing to me. Try a fresh chocolate bar and compare it to a preserved chocolate bar. Let me know what you think and if you’re not happy, I’m not. Thanks for reading!
Sincerely,
David Mason
The Chocolate Maker