Man’s romance with chocolate is several centuries old and mankind has been indulging in this aphrodisiac from time immemorial. However, the quality of custom made chocolates makes a lot of difference to how much enjoy it. There is no real or artificial chocolate. This said, there is good or bad tasting chocolate. There are several ways using which you can identify the difference between good, really good and not so good chocolate. Now, you can identify your chocolate like a real connoisseur and become an expert in it.
Tips to identify real chocolate
1.First of all learn how chocolate is made because it provides great insights into how the chocolate should taste also. Eating chocolate is actually the easiest part, but making it starts from identifying the right cacao beans for custom made chocolates. The original cacao beans are sourced from various cacao-growing countries of the world, like South Africa, Jamaica, Western Africa, Mexico, Columbia and Costa Rica. The best beans are available in these countries. You can easily tell the difference between the chocolate beans imported from these countries and the locally grown ones.
2.These beans are roasted just to the right amount, not too dark and not too light and just about perfect. If they are not roasted well, then the chocolate could get too bitter or too dark and both are a bad combination. The perfectly roasted cacao beans give the best taste to chocolate. After that the roasted beans are grounded and made into chocolate by mixing it with butter and other ingredients.
3.Once the chocolate is made that is when you should start tasting different types of chocolates to determine its quality. They say good chocolate melts in your mouth and that is true to a large extent. However, this is not true in some cases, especially custom made chocolates. There are some chocolates that are bitter-sweet in taste and they are supposed to taste like that and it is intentional. So while tasting the bitter-sweet varieties, you should be able to get both the tastes equally and in a balanced way.
4.Many people think that white chocolates are not custom made chocolates. It is true because it has no chocolate content in it or any cacao beans in it. However, it is used widely in making chocolates and confectionery items. By taste it is very sweet and tastes a lot like chocolate and that is why it is called white chocolate.
5.The texture of custom made chocolates should be soft unless you deep freeze it. The chocolate should easily break and also should be chewy. In its liquid form, chocolate should be gooey; in its solid form, it should just melt in your mouth; and when it is hard, it should be chewy. So chocolates also have many states of matter that we did not know about until now.
6.The taste is the final decider if the custom made chocolates are of good or bad quality. There is no other taste that can describe chocolate or can be compared with it. So chocolate taste is chocolate taste. That’s it! Some other qualities like crunchiness and the flavor of chocolate can be taken into consideration to determine its quality.
Chocolates are used for a lot of purposes other than eating. They are used in confectionary items to a large extent and they are also used in some medicines. There is a wide application of chocolate in various other products. However, people who love chocolates should also indulge in making some of their own!