Choosing chocolate for a tasting
Vary one thing. Four bars maximum. The selection matters more than anything you do on the night.
If you read nothing else
Four bars, one variable, same maker. Madagascar against Ecuador at 70% is the clearest first lesson available, and nothing above 85%.
One variable
The selection is the whole exercise. Four origins at the same percentage from the same maker teaches origin. Four percentages from one maker teaches what sugar does. Four makers at one origin and percentage teaches how much the maker matters — usually a surprise.
A set that varies origin, percentage and maker at once teaches nothing, and it is what almost everyone buys first.
The starting flight
Madagascar and Ecuador at 70% from one maker is the clearest two-bar introduction there is, because their characters are close to opposite — bright red fruit and acidity against soft floral aromatics.
Add Venezuela or the Dominican Republic for a low-acid nutty counterpoint, and Ghana for the classic robust cocoa baseline. That is four, and four is the maximum.
What to avoid buying
Anything above 85%, which fatigues the palate quickly and makes everything after it taste flat. Flavoured or inclusion bars, which are a different exercise. And more than five bars, because discrimination falls off sharply beyond that regardless of experience.
One bar of each is plenty. A tasting portion is a couple of squares per person.
Covered in this guide
- Chocolate on a plated dessertServing temperature, and why cold flattens a chocolate component.
- Setting up a chocolate tastingThe mechanics on the night.
- Building a tasting flightSix flight designs and what each teaches.
- Tasting scorecardThe structured record.
Sources
- ChocolateHQ editorial synthesis — ChocolateHQ(citation identity confirmed; passage not re-read)