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It's Thursday morning here on London, barely 48 hours after I arrived at Heathrow for the start of my Euro2013 Road Trip.
This year's trip will see me traveling to Amsterdam, Milan, and Paris after I leave London. It's chocolate festival season here in Europe. It is true, however, that I am missing some events in the US - the festivals in Chicago for example, as well as Dallas. While I would enjoy being able to attend either or both those events, the lure of being back here in Europe was just too great to ignore.
It's Chocolate Week in the UK which means that there are all sorts of activities going on and people in town from all over.
Shortly after arriving in London on Tuesday morning I made my way to the judging room for the 2013 World Finals judging of the International Chocolate Awards. 6 sessions over the course of two days judging the winners of the various regional competitions in order to arrive at the top picks, which will be announced during the inaugural London Salon du Chocolat (formerly Chocolate Unwrapped) over the weekend.
I arrived in time for the second judging session of the day and to lots of familiar faces and new.
Also at table 1: Maricel Presilla.
The judging process at the ICA is will thought out and quite detailed. The process and all of the forms and instructions used are posted online for anyone to see, and, more importantly, they are subject to regular review based on the feedback of entrants and judges. The judging process is designed to tackle managing subjectivity - the fact that every judge has different tasting abilities, experiences, and biases.
This turns out to be a very good thing because during the first judging session I took part it, something went haywire with my mouth and everything (we were judging plain dark/origin bars) and I mean everything, tasted over-roasted and astringent. I mentioned this to the organizer of the judging (Martin Christy) because I know that there are statistical checks that can be done to identify consistent outliers (like my giving everything a 3 or 4 when the average scores of all the other judges was much higher) that will enable them to take that into account when doing the final tallies.
Over the course of two days I participated in four judging sessions. On Wednesday, that amounted to 8 flights (plates) of between 3 and 6 pieces. Judges are never asked to taste more than 6 entries before returning to a "palate check" chocolate that helps judges know when their palates start to get fatigued.
The overall judging process is very different from the one I encountered at the Good Food Awards, which makes sense as the Good Food Awards is looking to award different things and has only one general chocolate category (not separate ones for dark, milk, white, and flavored/filled) and one general confectionery category.
While one may quibble with the results, given the huge number of entries, the process is better managed than any other I have encountered and been involved with. I've organized and managed judging and it's tough to do well. What's very cool is that I have no idea who the winners are going to be, I just have my impressions of what I tasted.
After finishing the judging what did I do? Go to a chocolate tasting, of course. This was a presentation I was asked to do for the Guild of Food Writers, co-organized with the Academy of Chocolate. The title of the presentation was What Is Fine Flavor Cocoa? This is a topic that's getting a lot of interest these days with organizations as diverse as ICCO and FCIA trying to figure it out. I am giving the presentation again at the Salon du Chocolat over the weekend, as well as another presentation, How Chocolate Gets Its Taste . After the presentation last night I sampled five different chocolate, four of which were award winners either in previous ICA competitions or Good Food Awards, and/or were entrants in this year's competitions. Three were from Fruition Chocolate (Hudson Valley, NY) - 66% Peruvian Dark, Peruvian Dark Milk, and Toasted White Chocolate. The fourth was from Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate ; not the fig bar which was an ICA winner, but the Dominican (Elvesia) bar. That's because the fifth bar, Chuao Chocolatier 's Salty Crunch bar, had inclusions and I didn't want two of the five bars in the tasting having inclusions. Both Dick Taylor and Chuao are represented in this year's ICA world finals judging, as is Fruition.
Today is an "off" day to relax and enjoy. There is a reception to attend in the evening, but nothing planned until then. Time to wander, sightsee, and enjoy London. (Because it's not raining.) And no, I did not see Hugh Grant, Julia Roberts, Rhys Ifans, or anyone. I am staying near Earl's Court tube station at a flat I found through AirBnB and it's turning out to be an incredibly convenient location. I had to connect through Notting Hill Gate station to get to the ICA judging location.
The next update will probably be on Saturday morning, after my first full day at the Salon du Chocolat. On Sunday I leave London for Harwich en route to Amsterdam via the overnight ferry. Next Wednesday is the Origin Chocolate conference where I am co-presenting with chef-chocolatier Kees Raat.
Hi Guys,
The Chocolate Tree in Edinburgh is a little chocolate cafe which sells its own beautiful handmade chocolate. Young Perspective is a newspaper entirely written for and run by young people.
The two organisations have come together to bring you the chance to win beautiful bars of chocolate tree chocolate here : http://www.youngperspective.net/win-handmade-chocolate-with-young-perspective.html
Young Perspective is not-for-profit and supports young writers, please support us by clicking on this link.
I use Capol 254 W to seal my Chocolate covered dragees. Then I polish them with Capol 425M . I have started production of Hard Sugar panned Dragees. I am not sure which Capol products will seal and polish my hard sugar coated Dragees. Any suggestion?
Raji from India.
Hi! Looking for options to package my gourmet hot chocolate mix. I am considering 1/2 lb coffee bags or a tin for something a little more elegant. If I do go with the tin - do I also need it to be in a heat sealed bag within the tin? Thanks!
Kalibri
Check out www.kickstarter.com = Minimally processed cacao project - http://www.kickstarter.co m Lorie's start-up has kickstarter project that will introduce minimally processed cacao (nibs & whole-roasted) as well as Mayan Meringues and Mayan Crunch to retail stores in the upper midwest. Lorie has been reasearching, tasting and testing cacao from throughout Latin America to find the perfect characteristics to roast.
Mokaya - automatic home tempering machine for small amounts of chocolate
Soon on Indiegogo:
Mokaya home chocolate tempering machine:
- Affordable, household equipment
- Capable to process 100 gr -900 gr of chocolate
- Easy to use, fully automatic device
- Easy to clean, removable pan
- High-quality stainless steel body and pans
- Portable, low-voltage operation
- Long-life semiconductor heating element
Please support our Kickstarter project!
I have, what I think, is a fantastic idea for a chocolate to market to the poker playing world and am seeking help from members here. I want to form a team. Please email me if interested in learning more. Thanks, Bill
We are in our last days of a Kickstarter Project in hopes of getting funded. We have such a passion for what we are doing and a grand vision of education, fun and support of our local economy and creating amazing confections with honey as a sweetener.
For those of you who are not familiar with Kickstarter it is a crowd funding site...if you don't meet your goal you get nothing..all or nothing.
I have been in the background of these boards, learned a lot, posted a little..and never thought until now..hindsight, to share what has been going on with our business. So I would like to start by sharing our Kickstarter project.
As all of you are aware..the costs are high to start up a business. We have been grass roots and now we need assistance to expand..to grow..to flourish.
Is this a politically correct forum to ask for support ... maybe not...or maybe it is the perfect place. We support each other with our Chocolate challenges..maybe this is just the perfect place.
We have purchased some of our equipment..from others going out of business...yikes! But it is the nature of the beast. We found an amazing spot in Tubac, AZ to lease. 
We have had to obtain an architect to draw up the blue print, nothing major needs to be done, but an approval needs to happen none the less. Still waiting for the drawing! The kitchen has to pass all inspections. We still have high costs which will exceed what we are asking for on Kickstarter .
We would still love a Savage Bros Firemixer..our mainstay is our caramel, a chocolate tempering machine, even better a melinger! Of course, the list goes on...and on....and keeps getting longer!
The above is our Velvet Mesquite Honey Caramel.
This has sure been a wild ride. I wake up in the middle of the night wondering how I got here. I just could not let go of the passion for organic, local and fair trade ingredients coaxing them to create an exciting result. My partner..husband and I have such a passion for this..that we haven't bought new clothes for awhile! I am sure you can relate..equipment...clothes...mmmmmhhhhh you do the math!
We feel there are so many folks watching and depending on our success in our community...which has one of the highest unemployment in our state. We want to stimulate our economy and others economy in such a sweet way..that is gentle to the earth while promoting sustainability.
Well...enough said time to wrap it up! Which I do a lot of ahhhh another dream a wrapping machine!
Linda