“20 Minutes” is taking advantage of the Salon du chocolat to launch a new video series on the theme of tasting.
Today, the chocolate for which Victoire Finaz, chocologist by profession, gives you all her secrets for a successful tasting.
The goal: to provide you with as much pleasure as possible.
Chocolate is not jam for pigs.
We know the expression, as we know how to distinguish dark chocolate from milk chocolate, but in fact, it is not necessarily easy to recognize good chocolate from bad, or even to put words on what we feel. when tasting it.
On the occasion of the Salon du chocolat which begins this Thursday (and is held until November 1 at the Porte de Versailles, in Paris), 20 Minutes asked an expert to guide us: Victoire Finaz, who made " his passionate obsession a profession”: chocologist.
For more than fifteen years, she has been leading workshops, and has opened a showroom to taste and sell her own chocolates, the Carrés Victoire.
His latest creations, in collaboration with coffee specialist Hippolyte Courty of L'Arbre à Café, are presented at the Salon du chocolat.
Here are his tips, which you can find in the video that accompanies this article.
1. Start with milk and end with the most intense
“You have to respect a tasting order that allows you not to saturate the taste buds and to have the maximum of flavors, believes Victoire Finaz.
In general, I recommend starting with milk, milk chocolate, because it is much softer and less intense in cocoa and it is true that cocoa tends to saturate the taste buds and suddenly, we will reserve dark chocolate and chocolate very intense in cocoa, rather for the end of tasting.
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2. Use your five senses
“In chocolate, the five senses are stimulated,” continues Victoire Finaz.
The view: we will look at the appearance of the chocolate, its thickness, its shine and its color.
The sense of smell: we will breathe in its scents.
Hearing: we will break the square to listen to the sound, there are some more acute, others more deaf.
If the case is clean, good.
If the chocolate crumbles, it is less so.
Then, we will put the chocolate in the mouth and there, we will evaluate the texture, the “touch of the tongue”: we can have fondant, smooth, fresh, but also floury, powdery.
Sometimes the chocolate is coating, long in the mouth, even explosive!
Then comes the taste.
Chocolate is a whole range of flavors: it can be vegetal, floral, milky, fruity…”
3. Really bite into chocolate
"You shouldn't be afraid to chew it well, advises Victoire Finaz, to end up with lots of small pieces in your mouth.
Cocoa is a spice that is important to chew, chew, crush to develop its flavors.
Someone who takes a square, sucks it quickly before swallowing me, loses aromatic potential.
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4. Remember to breathe through your nose
“We call that retro-olfaction, explains Victoire Finaz: exhaling air through the nose.
When I have my square in my mouth, I will close it.
Exhaling through the nose will send all the aromas to the level of the olfactory bulb.
There, I will really have an explosion of flavors and it will give me a lot of pleasure.
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5. Don't forget to bite into the same chocolate twice
“When you put something in your mouth for the first time, says Victoire Finaz, there is an effect of surprise.
Your concentration is not focused on sensations, on pleasure.
This is the second croque that will bring you a lot of pleasure.
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6. Call on your memories
"Tasting is a personal experience that calls on your memories to provoke emotions", concludes Victoire Finaz who, knows what she is talking about, she who has been immersed in chocolate since she was little and spends hours every day chew to perfect his feelings.
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