Hello, more chocolate than you could ever eat, or would ever want to eat. (And man, I never thought I’d say that!) The chocolate world is growing exponentially, if the entries in the Americas/Asia-Pacific arm of the International Chocolate Awards are any indication.
Here’s how it works. You taste a few couverture chocolates to prime your palate, take notes on what you find, get yourself a bowl of cold polenta (which they’ve found sandpapers any leftover flavors away), and start blind-tasting anonymous entries by category. Every five chocolates or so, you go back to the couverture to see if your tastes have changed (think major palate fatigue!).
I tasted everything from solid dark chocolate bars to inclusion bars to milk bars to bonbons to white chocolate. I started at 3 PM, stopped around 8 PM, and somehow, dizzily, made my way home. The craziest part: I was the biggest wimp there. Everyone else had been judging for 3 days straight. Stomachs of steel, I say. Stomachs of steel.
Stay tuned for the winners in the coming months!
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