Communicator (communicator) wrote,
Communicator
communicator

Chocolate heaven

Artisan du Chocolat is a small shop which sells very expensive chocolate. They run tasting sessions in an upstairs room. Happytune's event on Saturday consisted of a two and a half hour tasting-and-discussion session with a chocolate expert.

We didn't eat a massive amount of chocolate, though it was probably about as much as you could physically manage, given that the chocolates are very rich and strong tasting. The chocolates are small and dense (they use granache rather than truffle base, which is creamy/syrupy rather than frothy in texture).

Unfortunately, due to crappy train service I was an hour late, which meant I missed the tasting of single-plantation chocolates from places like Guatemala and New Guinea. I was given samples of these to take away, but it would have been nice to hear the full description of where they originated, and the nuances of their flavour.

I was present for the flavoured chocolate tasting. Artisan produce very sophisticated chocolate flavours which are strong and authentic. For example we tried a mint flavour chocolate which actually tasted like a fragrant mint leaf picked from the garden - utterly unlike a peppermint sweety. Violet chocolates tasted like the aroma of a violet. I tried chocolates flavoured with oak resin, tobacco leaf (amazingly, delicious, although I hate tobacco smoke) tonka bean and lapsang. There also produce a leather flavoured chocolate, though we didn't get to try that.

I thoroughly recommend this, as an activity. You can book as an individual or a group, contact details here.
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  • Phew what a scorcher

    I see Gove has backed down on climate change and it's back in the curriculum again.

  • GCSE Computer Science

    My book is now for sale

  • LJ Settings

    At the moment I have set up this journal so that only friends can comment. I hate doing this, but I was just getting too much Russian spam.