Tasting chocolate is fun. A lot more fun than just eating it. When you have great chocolate you have an opportunity to experience some of the most delicate and mind blowing flavours in the world. There are approximately 600 flavour compounds in cacao, three times as many as red wine! But sometimes those flavours are hard to find…
The great news is that the easiest way to learn and gain experience is to eat lots of different chocolates! Trying a few bars at the same time is the best idea. As you get better at it’s fun to taste very similar chocolates – their unique elements will start to stand out.
To make it easier to learn, a lot of people find having a panel of flavour descriptors a useful tool. We’ve created a free and easy-to-read flavour wheel for some of the more common flavours to look out for.
Once you’re comfortable with this and find yourself ready for more detail – we highly recommend The Chocolate Tasting Kit by Eagranie Yuh. We also find it helpful to record our tasting notes in a tasting diary or notepad (it’s great to see your notes change over time and really interesting to compare your notes as you taste the same bar over and over).
Download our flavour wheel now.