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Café Chocolate Lititz : Chocolate
Candy Chocolate and Real Chocolate
Commercial chocolate can contain such low amounts of cocoa solids and many real chocolate-lovers claim we have been 'taste washed', growing up on chocolate whose true flavors have been gagged and destroyed by large additions of sugar and artificial flavors.
Sugar, like salt, used in excess merely kills the taste of the original product. In addition to lower quality cocoa beans and mass production techniques, this can often lead to a single "chocolate-type" of flavor and a higher fat product.
Excess sugar also tends to be addictive, that shortly after eating it, you feel great, consumed by a surge of energy, followed by a low when the sugar rush runs out. So, if you are a lover of newsagent chocolate and feel the need for a "chocolate lift", it is likely to be the sugar to which you are addicted and not the chocolate.
The aim of the true chocolatier is to give you a mouthful of glorious chocolate with a sublime mouth feel. Intensely dark real chocolate with tangs of spice, fruit and cocoa should fill your mouth and give you that unequalled feeling of being so good that you never want to swallow it.
That's a true chocolate 'addiction'. Cocoa contains naturally occurring chemicals like theobromine and phenylethyalanine which the brain reproduces when we get excited by falling or being in love.
The transition from commercial chocolate to sophisticated high cocoa solid chocolate can be a wonderful journey but take it slowly. Once you have discovered your preferred beans and flavors, you may find you can no more eat a piece of the sugary chocolate confectionery on which many were weaned than eat the paper in which it's wrapped!
Naturally, it's a matter of personal taste and there is room for both in a person's list of favorite foods. It's like comparing lumpfish roe with caviar. There is very little comparison and, having tried both, you may still prefer the lumpfish roe but at least you have tried to appreciate the qualities of the other.
There is a real case for judging fine chocolate like fine wine. The better the quality of grape and methods of cultivation, then the better the wine. So it is true for chocolate and the more we understand about it, the more we will appreciate it.
Brought to your attention by your friends at Café Chocolate of Lititz.
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