Many of us enjoy the comfort cups that have the chocolate tones. Our Gopher Group meets monthly, homeroasters from around the state. April will be an opportunity for us to drill down on refining our use of chocolate terms in our cupping notes. Here is what I sent out this a.m.

I will follow up in April and update the thread. In the months following, I will have an herb month, where my 30+ herbs in the kitchen will help us with fragrance and aroma specificity.

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"Come prepared to learn. Let's drill down and refine our use of "chocolate" in our cupping notes. I will have group one items (see below) available. Bring from group 2 as well as a coffee you have roasted that has chocolate in it (Brazils and Bolivians are notorious comfort cups of chocolate and nuts) and a chocolate item. Some Yemens, Ethiopians, Costa Rican Tarrazus, and a Guat now and then will display chocolate in the full city range. We often note "chocolate" or "cocoa" in our notes. Let's drill down and make sure we are on the mark with our verbiage by tasting coffees against the food product.

Group one
plain cocoa
cocoa mix
bakers' chocolate
Hershey's light
Hershey's dark

Group 2
White chocolate
You name it, Snickers, Cadbury products, choc cherry, or anything else I should have listed in group one."

B|Java

Preparing for Sat's gathering of the Gopher Gulpers. We wish to improve our cupping/evaluation notes when using "chocolate" terms.

We will have an array of chocolates, will taste them, and then evaluate 7 coffees we are bringing that have chocolate notes. I stopped at a chocolatier's shop. She insisted our efforts wouldn't be productive because cocoas (like coffees) from around the world differ, ie Mexico, Colombia, Madagascar. I hung in during the discussion and she brought out and gave me a chocolate tasting wheel and then reached below the counter.

She bagged about 20 grams of the finest Madagascar cocoa powder (no sugar). She suggested I hit the co-op where I scored some additional items. So for Saturday, I will have:

^ Pure cocoa powder (which reminded me of the 4th place Braz COE I distributed last month -- couldn't wait till Sat)
^ Colombian bittersweet chocolate drops
^ Colombian semi-sweet chocolate drops
^ Colombian milk chocolate drops
^ Cocoa mix (powder and sugar) and
^ Ecuadoran white chocolate drops

Others are also bringing chocolate items so I will update and post back our cupping experiences after Saturday. Stay tuned.

Looking forward to reading an update on the groups' findings!

A closer look at herbs/spices sounds interesting too. Being able to accurately describe certain flavors/tastes (in coffee but in other foods too), is definitely not a simple task.

Maybe the group could come up with a stripped-down list of a few types of chocolates, that they ended up finding most interesting, when compared or correlated to chocolate notes they've experienced in coffee? I know this could be asking a lot and could be very subjective.

...With ketchup and black pepper being considered "too spicy" by some people in Minnesota (some relatives of mine included), I just envisioned several taste notes of "that chocolate was too spicy" being thrown in the follow-up notes.

JavaBuzz wrote:...

...With ketchup and black pepper being considered "too spicy" by some people in Minnesota (some relatives of mine included), I just envisioned several taste notes of "that chocolate was too spicy" being thrown in the follow-up notes.

Stop it, you have met the Gophers. <<grins>>

Will try and be as specific as possible.

B|Java

Yes, I have; hence how I knew they could appreciate the "lighthearted jab."

Great group of very knowledgable guys with a good sense of humor (and a decent tolerance for heat/spice).

Fruits might be an interesting comparison for a future month as well (in addition to the flavor, maybe a focus on the acidity too)?

Thanks Boldjava!

Chocolate flavor wheel shared by the chocolatier. See any similarities?

How'd it go? I just saw this. It would have been a great excuse to hope a redeye to Minnesota!

You would be welcomed. We had a hoot. I learned a ton. I will be blogging about it.

Some quick intro notes. Take numbers with a grain of salt. I found variance out there:
* Milk Choc - 10-20% cocoa solid
* White Choc - no cocoa solids (only cocoa butter). Contains more than 12% milk solids.
* Dark Choc - must contain less than 12% milk solids. May be semi-sweet, bittersweet,
* Sweet dark choc. 35-45% cocoa solids
* Semi-sweet choc: 40-62% cocoa solids
* Bittersweet choc: 60-82% cocoa solids
* Unsweetened choc: 100% cocoa, up to 50% cocoa butter
* Ground cocoa: pure 100% ground nibs

We had 8 chocolates and 6 coffees. The clearest mappings were:

* Pure 100% ground cocoa (Madagascar) and the Brazil Cup of Excellence
* Brazil Cerrado and a 90% cocoa bar from Mexico

Very obvious, apparent tones.

Other good correlating coffees were a Sumatran Mandheling which correlated most closely with an 80% cocoa bar.

The guys all brought top-shelf cocoa bars so missing were the chocolate caramel tones, the chocolate and nougat tastes. The best pure stand alone chocolate? A 72% cocoa, black fig that John Miller brought. Whereas it would take me 1/2 lb of milk chocolate to satiate me, two bits of this high-end chocolate did the trick. Quality stuff.



Hiding in the background of that picture is home-made venison sausage. We up here in the Midwest are partial to sausages. In this case, Curly Johnsen bagged a deer last Fall and we put a real dent into Bambi. Oh yes, we capped the afternoon with a couple of these:



Finally, off to Invalsa. I found some great chocolate/comfort cups from their Bolivian micro-lots last year. Time to grab 20 lbs:

http://invalsacoffee.com/collections/bolivia

This is great. I love the chocolate part of coffee, especially for my espresso destined coffee.

Gotta mention though, I remember when I learned White Chocolate had no actual cocoa or "chocolate" in it, only cocoa butter. Sad day indeed lol. I do love white chocolate.

JmanEspresso wrote:...

Gotta mention though, I remember when I learned White Chocolate had no actual cocoa or "chocolate" in it, only cocoa butter. Sad day indeed lol. I do love white chocolate.

One member made the same pronouncement. "No cocoa solids, not chocolate." I said, "Bah..." and proceeded to munch away and toss white chocolate wafers at his placemat.