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Can anyone tell me the shelf life of Pernigotti cocoa powder, which has a higher fat content (20-22%)?

Thanks,

Dorothy

just wanted to let you all know that tcho moved their new 99% bar out of "beta" and is selling it at the full bar size (58gram). online it's 2 bars for $11

http://www.tcho.com/shop/chocolate/bars/91594

so the thing is - this stuff is special. i have tried 99% many times and actually used to eat the scharfenberger 99% although it was borderline in terms of being palatable eaten plain. but this tcho bar really has beaten down the bitterness and let the real flavor come through with no sugar. i don't know how they did it but it's really surprising.

i enjoy chocolate but i don't like how the refined sugar makes me feel.usuallyi'm eating such a small amount that it's not a big deal. but to have the fullchocolateflavor with no bitterness and no sugar is great. I have triedchocolatesweetened with brown rice syrup and it's pretty good. other 'diabetic' chocolates that i have tried are gross.

anyway i do want to disclose that i work on their website but i am not an employee and get no benefit from sales or commissions or anything like that. i just like their products.

My husband I are trying to get a business off the ground and are in search of a company for packaging. We are primarily selling small batch hand rolled truffles and would like to have boxes that will show off our work and not break the bank. Any suggestions?

Thank you for any help you can offer.

Kristine Enos

Danielson, CT

Last year the Origin Chocolate Event started as a little event: one evening, four speakers and about forty visitors. This year it was much bigger: two days, ten speakers and a lot more visitors. Location was the very beautiful Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam. The first day was for professionals and the second day for the real chocolate lovers.

Purpose of the event is to promote fine flavour and sustainable chocolate in The Netherlands. Organized by Erik Saur (El Sauco, distributor of origin chocolate), Caroline Lubbers and me (Vera Hofman), all with a passion for good chocolate.

The international speakers were the most important part of the program. Award winning chocolate makers and experts were doing presentations in parallel sessions in the afternoon and evening. An overview:

Sepp Schnbchler, R&D Manager at Felchlin

Sepp told us the story of Felchlin. Most important are the people, in Switzerland and in the cacao growing countries. Felchlin works with the best quality beans and the challenge is how to get the specific characteristics of the beans into the chocolate. The process from bean to chocolate, with special attention for conching, is Sepps specialty. He rediscovered the old traditional Lindt conches from 1879 and brought them back into production. A lot of people in the chocolate industry followed him. Moisture and remaining acids evaporate and all small particles are covered with cacao butter. This results in a very smooth texture, sublime melting and all the flavours of the beans are beautiful expressed. We tasted an unconched chocolate and a chocolate that has been conched for 48 and 60 hours. It shows major difference in texture and flavour development. Sepps eyes gleam whenever the word chocolate is used.

Philipp Kauffmann, founder of Original Beans

Philipp has a background in nature conservation. Five years ago he started Original Beans with the mission: making the World better through chocolate. The company focuses on the bio diversity hotspots, the most important areas for our eco-system. Places where nature conservation is an urgent matter and where also rare cacao varieties are growing. One of these areas is the Virunga National Park in DR Congo where the last mountain gorillas live. Due to Original Beans 13.000 farmers are now organic certified, they have doubled their income and over 3 million trees are planted. For every bar sold a tree is planted in the country of origin. Besides the chocolate from the Virunga we also tasted the Piura Porcelana from Peru, a wild bean from Bolivia and for dessert a creamy milk chocolate with fleur de sel from Ecuador.

Clay Gordon, founder of thechocolatelife.com

How chocolate gets its taste is his subject. Every step in the process from bean to bar is the most important step. The bean variety, terroir, fermentation, drying, roasting and conching, everything influences the final taste of the chocolate. He summarizes this into a very complicated mathematical formula. The conclusion however is not that theoretical: chocolate is there to enjoy!

Mott Green, founder Grenada Chocolate Company

In 1999 Mott founded the worlds first tree-to-bar company in Grenada. He started making chocolate with very creative self-made machines. Today his equipment is much more modern. The company is owned by the farmers and all employees earn the same salary. Sustainability is very important: all machines run on solar power and the latest transport from Grenada to Europe was by sailboat, completely CO 2 - neutral. Mott told us a passionate story en showed us pictures of his newest construction for drying the beans. Half an hour is not enough for Mott, we also have to taste all his bars. Favourite is the Nib-a-Licious!

Santiago Peralta, founder of Pacari

Last weekend he won 10 of The International Chocolate Awards. Proudly he told us about his company in Ecuador: Pacari. He processes the best Arriba beans from different areas in Ecuador to beautiful chocolates like Esmeraldas, Manabi and Los Rios. Leader in making raw chocolate: fresh and fruity! Not only organic certified but also bio-dynamic Demeter. Besides the plain dark bars he makes also a large collection of bars with additions like lemongrass, Andean blueberry and spirulina.

Martin Christy, founder of Seventy% Club and Direct Cacao, head of the jury of the International Chocolate Awards

How do you become a chocolate connoisseur? Taste! And do this very slowly! Martin did an experiment with us. First we took a piece of chocolate and brought it very slowly with outstretched arm to our nose. Smell all the aromas. Then we put it slowly in our mouth and let the chocolate melt on our tongue. Texture, how it melts and all the stadia in flavour development you become consciously aware. As a contrast we tasted, or rather ate, a piece of chocolate very quickly. It had to be gone in 6 seconds. It is obvious you taste almost nothing. All flavours completely pass by you and there is no after taste either. The conclusion: enjoy it slowly!

Bertil Akesson, founder Akessons

Where as the other speakers held a presentation, Bertils session was an interactive one. He told us about his family who owned cacao plantations on Madagascar for years. The most fruity Criollo and Trinitario beans grow there. Akesson supplies these first class beans to several chocolate makers all over the world. Bertil makes his chocolate in a factory in France. We tasted his Madagascar bar with tasting notes of the pepper that grows in the neighbourhood and he adds to some of his other chocolate bars. We also tasted chocolate from his plantation in Brazil. The main tasting note of this one is hazelnut. His latest creation is a chocolate made with beans from Bali. Besides a plain dark chocolate he also makes a milk chocolate with sea salt from those beans.

Maricel Presilla, founder of Gran Cacao, chef and writer

Maricel was born on Cuba between cacao trees. She is owner of Gran Cacao, two restaurants and she writes culinary books. In 2001 she wrote the legendary book The new taste of chocolate in which several cacao varieties are described. Recently she is named best chef in the Mid-Atlantic region. Her new book Gran Cocina Latina has just been launched. Maricel told us about her love for chocolate and cooking. She only works with chocolate she knows the background of. The beans, the farmers and the producer, the whole story has to be fair. She brought a big shopping bag full of all kinds of chocolate. We tasted chocolate made with beans from Venezuela: Guasare, Chuao and Cuyagua. And last but not least water-based ganache chocolates by chocolatier Damian Allsop from Londen.

Anna Laven, Royal Tropical Institute

Anna does research and gives advice on sustainable cacao. The definition of sustainable cacao is that it has one of these four certifications: Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, UTZ or Organic. There is an agreement that all cacao has to be sustainable produced from 2025 and from this year all Chocolate Letters. The question is if sustainable according to the current definition is enough. One of the biggest problems at this moment is the average age of the cacao farmer. In Ghana it is 50 years with a life expectancy of 60. Young people dont want to take over the farm because of the low earnings. Another problem is that not all farmers are able to get a certification. Only the 10% well organized farmers succeed. And then theres the question: will the extra pay reach the farmer? The big industries are making a move, but there still is a lot that can be done better.

Vincent Mourou, founder of Marou Chocolate

The history of cacao in Vietnam goes back to before 1600. In the past all cacao was sold to big companies like Callebaut, who does not care about quality, and blends the beans. A few years ago US chocolate maker Scharffen Berger made a change by producing the first single origin from Vietnam beans called Ben Tr. Vincent and his business partner Samuel Maruta both ended up in Vietnam and fell in love with the country. They quit their commercial jobs and decided to start making chocolate over there. Almost a year later they are producing five bars, each from a different region. One tastes spicy, another fruity and their latest creation has the flavours of roses. Every weekend they travel through the country searching for new cacao varieties.

Both days the afternoon program ended with a debate session

On the first day of the event the debate was about sustainability. What does sustainability really means? Retailers like Wholefoods require certifications from their suppliers. Small producers that buy the cacao directly from the farmers and pay a much higher price often dont have the means to certify. Direct traded cacao is not considered as sustainable by both retailer and consumer. There are already initiatives to promote this cacao. The message to the public is: tell the story about how chocolate is made en let people taste!

The second day the debate is about quality: how do you recognize good chocolate? Nature has a great influence on taste. The bean variety, terroir and processes in the country of origin like fermentation and drying. The last steps in the factory, particularly roasting and conching, finishes it. Pay attention to the wrapping: does it mention where the beans come from? And the price: you pay more for good quality. In comparison to wine and balsamic you pay a very low price for an excellent chocolate. So what the world needs is a 100 dollar bar!

Exhibitors:

- Kees Raat of Metropolitan Deli. The first bean-to-bar maker in The Netherlands. He uses beans from Cuba and makes delicious creations with his chocolate: brownies, marshmallows and ice cream!

- Norbert Mergen and Jan-Paul Fros of online chocolate shop Chocoweb. Besides bars of all of the event speakers also Menakao, Paul de Bondt and El Ceibo.

- Leslie VanderLeeuw of Amsterdam chocolate shop Chocoltl presented bars of small US bean-to-bar makers Dandelion and Ritual.

- Geert Vercruysse from Kortrijk, Belgium is the only Belgian chocolatier who doesnt use Belgian chocolate for his pralines. He spotted new tree-to-bar makers from Hawaii, Fiji, Australia and was also the one who introduced Marou from Vietnam. In his gorgeous pralines ganaches from all these origin couvertures.

- Of course the best Dutch coffee and tea stores Golden Coffee Box and Evermore Tea.

Between afternoon and evening session on the first day a plate of vegetables with a dressing of Original Beans Beni Wild Harvest chocolate was presented. The second day a chocolate dinner by NH Krasnapolsky hotel chef Jan Schramowski or chocolate tapas by chef Marilla Erkens.

Two wonderful days! Sharing passion and knowledge about origin chocolate.

We are looking forward to the 2013 event!

This weekend (November 9-11) saw The Chocolate Show in New York City. The show is organized by Event International, the company that organizes the Salon du Chocolat in Paris and more than 15 other cities around the world. New York is the only location that does that does not incorporate the Salon du Chocolat brand into the name.

I like The Chocolate Show for a number of reasons, including the fact that it brings out the core of the NY chocolate community every year while bringing people to the city that I only get to see once or twice a year.

The New York show comes on the heels of the Salon du Chocolat in Paris (Oct 31 - Nov 4) and at the same time as the Salon du Chocolat in Lyon. I mention this as a preface to the effects of Hurricane Sandy. Three major shows in a two-week period is a lot of work and to some extent this was reflected in the organization and depth of offerings here at the New York show. For example, there was no opening fashion show and the show was shortened from its conventional four days to three. The show site suggests that visitors could expect 150 participants. The official show program lists about 55 exhibitors, a number that might be increased 50% if all of the speakers and presenters over the three days are also counted, so 150 participants was a stretch.

The conflict of timing also meant that some prior Chocolate Show participants from France did not make it this year, notably Franois Pralus (who was represented by his US distributor, though not with the variety of product that ended up being shown in Lyon, which is only an hour from Pralus' headquarters in Roanne).

But the big wrench in the works was undoubtedly Hurricane Sandy. The number of exhibitors - local, national, and international - was reduced by more than a dozen. Some of the exhibitors' businesses - notably NYC's Fika Choklad - were inundated by the hurricane. Other companies had trouble changing travel plans in the wake of the hurricane and the Nor'easter that dumped up to four inches of snow on Wednesday, less than 48 hours before the start of the show. Mott Green, of the Grenada Chocolate Company, mentioned that his flight to NY from Grenada was canceled. He was able to get a flight to Trinidad and catch a red-eye to NYC from there, otherwise he would have been late or missed the show entirely. Sorely missed were Guittard, probably the most consistent exhibitor at The Chocolate Show over its history.

On the flip side, Maricel Presilla (author of the must-owns The New Taste of Chocolate and Gran Cocina Latina ) whose Hoboken, NJ-based restaurant Cucharamama and Latin grocery store Ultramarinos suffered significant storm damage, was able to staff a booth at the last minute. I saw her on Saturday morning when she told me that she left the show on Friday to return to Hoboken to reopen Cucharamama for service Friday evening. No small feats. Maricel was also serving grand chicken mol tamales on Saturday - a real treat. Maricel is a hugely valuable asset to the NY chocolate community, and if you have never been to Cucharamama, now is the time to go in support. (It's okay to go to New Jersey if you have any prejudices about it. It's not difficult to get to Hoboken on the PATH, and it's less than a 15-minute walk from the PATH to the restaurant. I've been there on several occasions and the food, drinks, and hospitality are never less than first rate.)

In addition to the weather having a visible impact on the exhibitor presence, the storm also had a huge effect on attendance. Friday was a very slow day compared with recent years, and Saturday, which started out with a rush, was noticeably beginning to slow down by the time I left, around 1:30. When I arrived at 10:30 there was no line when last year the line was hundreds of people deep. I did not go today, so I won't know how attendance stacked up until someone checks in with me. It's not clear if this year's weather problems will have an impact on next year's show. Certainly the organizers can't bear any blame for the weather, but the reduced number of exhibitors may be remembered by show regulars (who were heard to balk at the ticket prices), and exhibitors may remember the comparatively poor attendee turnout. Only time - and a 2103 show - will tell.

Pacari - the surprise runaway winner at the recent International Chocolate Awards - was in the Ecuador booth and featured founder Santiago Peralta whose travel schedule included returning to Ecuador after the Amsterdam Origin Chocolate conference then returning to Paris for the Salon du Chocolat before coming to NYC. Also in the Ecuador booth were Kallari with their new line of Sacha chocolate bars:

The other major bar introduction came from West Chester, PA-based Eclat. Their Good & Evil bar - which retails for $18 - is made using beans sourced in the Maraon River valley of Peru. These are not exactly the same beans used to make Fortunato #4, but they are sourced in the same general area. (The chocolate itself is manufactured in Switzerland, as is Fortunato #4, not in West Chester.)

The percentage is 4% higher than Fortunato #4, and the bar contains nibs, so it's not possible to compare the chocolate in the Good&Evil bar with the Fortunato, which is something I would like to do. The other feature of Good&Evil is the collaboration of two very well-known chefs, Eric Ripert (of Le Bernardin) and Tony Bourdain (author of Kitchen Confidential, and TV host) - Christopher Curtin (the third name on the bar) is the founder of Eclat. Neither Bourdain nor Ripert are known for their skills with chocolate, but there is no doubt that this celebrity co-branding will increase sales and make the $18 price tag more palatable to more people.

And that's it for today. I am catching a train to Stamford, CT shortly to attend the grand opening celebration for Fritz Knipschildt's Chocopologie.

To All Members of TheChocolateLife:

I was thinking this morning about the ways in which the ChocolateLife community might be able to aid in Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts. And not just aid ChocolateLife members who make their livings making chocolate, but also people whose lives have been been tossed upside down and inside out who are in need of assistance.

After all, I know that there are ChocolateLife members up and down the East Coast that were within the path of the storm and many of them had to be affected one way or another - and right during the busiest time of the year. While I was not too terribly affected by Sandy, many people in my community were: I am right on Long Island Sound near the New York/Connecticut border. I have neighbors and friends who have suffered damage and bodily harm and who are still without power and other basic services.

I was happy, then, to be contacted by Renee Rohrbach and Ricky Sanders of Madison West Chocolatiers, in New Jersey, who let me know that they have started an on-line fundraiser (don't forget to "like" this page if you have a Facebook account) and they will donate all of the proceeds from sales to two beneficiaries near them in New Jersey: The Salvation Army and to a local fiery food producer (Ed Buchholtz of Born to Hula Hot Sauce) who suffered significant damage to home and business in the storm. Renee let me know that they did not survive the hurricane unscathed, but want to do something to help.

Here's how it works:

1) Go to the Madison West Chocolatiers Facebook store on or before November 16th.

2) Purchase any one or more of the following three items at the wholesale price ( the listed price is the wholesale price and each of the bars serves 6-10 people, usually) on or before November 16th for delivery by Thanksgiving:

-- Pumpkin Spice Bar
-- Raspberry Truffle Bar
-- Shooting Star Bar (ganache is made with a hybrid Ghost/Scorpion pepper - very hot!)

There is no direct link to each product on the catalog page. Scroll down to the bottom of the store where the items are listed, or search using your browser's in-page text search feature.

3) 95% of the proceeds of each sale (which Renee tells me is the difference between cost of manufacture and wholesale price) will be donated to the designated recipients . The proceeds from the Pumpkin Spice and Raspberry bars will go to the Salvation Army and the proceeds from the Shooting Star bar will go to Ed Bucholtz.

4) Tweet the following link to this page, along with your own message using the #chocolate hashtag and @DiscoverChoc handle to spread the message far and wide: http://goo.gl/7qEtn

Note) Purchases do not count as tax-deductible contributions.

WHAT ELSE YOU CAN DO

A) If you, or someone you know, is offering a chocolate-related Hurricane Sandy relief special, please add the details as a comment to this page. (That's why I want you to tweet the link to this page, so people can be informed of special offers members of the chocolate community, not just the ChocolateLife community, are making to aid Sandy relief efforts.

B) Don't just buy for yourself, buy early holiday gifts for friends and family.

C) Add Hurricane Sandy chocolate to your Thanksgiving menu and reflect on the gift of chocolate and the gift of community on Thanksgiving day.

Thank you all,
:: Clay

Three weeks ago I was in London to be at Chocolate Unwrapped for the second year. This year a new location Covent Garden; more stands, talks, demonstrations and visitors! A few years ago this event was set up to promote fine flavour chocolate, artisan chocolatiers and chocolate companies who work in direct partnership with the cocoa farmers. And I must say: they succeeded!

I arrived Friday before the event. Because I was not be able to go to Paris this year I went straight to La Maison Du Chocolats store at Picadilly to get some French stuff. See the first picture below of pastries Dlice and Andalusie and some chocolates.

Saturday I was the whole day selling Original Beans bars at Unwrapped. Besides the bars we had also gorgeous macarons made by On Cafe with Cru Virunga ganache (picture 2). There were a lot of exhibitors from last year. New this year: Italian Antica Dolceria Bonajuto and Donna Elvira, Chocolate Nave, Enric Rovira, Menakao and Duane Dove of Tobago Cocoa Estate chocolate. His stand was very colourful with all the different pods he brought with him (picture 3). My favorite chocolatier Damian Allsop had a beautiful box with Cru Virunga water-based ganaches (pictures 4 and 5). Wow, these are taste bombs!

Dominican Republic is the main exportator of organic cacao in the world. There is a lot of great cacao produced here but not too many people to prepare a great chocolate out of it.

If everything runs well we will be opening one of our ChocoMuseo in Bvaro, Punta Cana on the 15th of November.

For those who never visited us in one of our other ChocoMuseo in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Per, we will be teaching people about cacao and its artisanal process to be transformed in chocolate. As all the ChocoMuseo, this one will count with its own artisanal chocolate factory, a cacao and chocolat museum and a caf with different chocolate drinks.

We will offer mainly two different activities:

• 2 hours bean to bar chocolate workshop where people learn all the steps from the cacao tree to the chocolate bar and leave the class with its own chocolates
• half-day tour in the cocoa plantation in Dominican Republic and demo of how chocolate is made from the cocoa beans

Our main goal is for people to know more about good chocolate and good cacao.

So, if like me, you love cacao and chocolate then spread the word and eat as much chocolate as you can.

More information soon on cacao in Dominican Republic.

Check out the album of photos .

Traveling to Amsterdam

I have only ever been to the airport in Amsterdam before - Schipol - changing planes 'twixt here and there. So I was looking forward to spending a few days to learn and explore.

I know why I took the early train from London (8:05am out of St Pancras) - cost. The next train was more than double the price, even though the Brussels/Amsterdam leg was a local train. Taking the express from Brussels cut an hour off the travel time at a cost of more than 100 Euros more. And, at an exchange rate of US$1.45 to 1.00 - it adds up quickly.

I like to take trains in Europe to see the countryside, and the views from my seat between Brussels and Amsterdam did not disappoint. Canals, canal boats, windmills, carefully tended fields, all fit my idea of what the country would look like. Even the tram ride from the station to the hotel looked like I imagined it should.

A good thing I got to sightsee when I did, because that was basically all I got to see of Amsterdam - the rest of the time was spent in the hotel, at the venue located right next door to the hotel, or in-between, dodging rain drops.

I did get to do a little socializing with new Amsterdam friends Leslie and Erik Spande, owners of a local chocolate shop specializing in fine chocolate brands including many craft bar brands from the US. Erik and I share a connection to Portland, OR and craft beers as well as to chocolate, so we got along famously, and he met me in my hotel and we walked over to a local craft brewery (see the photo album) where we tried three of the excellent brews. Along the way we were joined by Erik's wife Leslie before heading out to a tapas restaurant - Pata Negra - right across from the hotel for a number of small plates and a pitcher of surprisingly good Sangria. I could not indulge too much or stay out too late as I learned I had been scheduled for an early morning video interview. So, I did not go out to explore the infamous Amsterdam nightlife.

The Conference

The conference was organized in an unusual way, over the course of two days. The first day was open to chocolate professionals and the second day was open to the general public. There was a small number of tabletop exhibitors sampling and selling products, and an identical conference speaker program twice each day. One program ran from 1pm to 5pm, the other program ran from 7pm to 11pm. There were four pairs of speakers in each of two rooms. In the first half of the section I was in, Sepp Schnbchler, the head of R&D for Felchlin and Philipp Kaufmann of Original Beans spoke. The second half of the section saw me paired with Mott Green of the Grenada Chocolate Company. Other speakers in other sections included Santiago Peralta (Pacari), Bertil Akesson (Akesson's Organics), Maricel Presilla, and Martin Christy (seventypercent.com), plus two others from the local chocolate community and the host organization, the Tropical Institute.

From a participant perspective, I can see how this arrangement works, especially adding a discrete evening session after the work day. This is a very young conference (this is the second year), and this (Amsterdam) is a location with a very passionate and concerned audience interested in learning about fine foods and chocolate - and is a city that has a long historical connection with cacao in a country that is the still the largest processor of cacao (grindings). From a speaker perspective, it was not as interesting as it could have been and I would have appreciated the opportunity to hear some of the other presenters. That said, however, there is value in seeing the same presentation over and over as the presenter is forced to make it new and interesting each time for themselves.Listening to several of the speakers crystallized in me a new writing project idea, which I am still working on outlining. As it becomes clearer in my head and closer to happening, I will let everyone know.

And each time the speakers revealed something different, and responded to different questions, so I learned something new each time I sat through each presentation.I know I was forced to alter my presentation slightly each time I gave it, to make it new and interesting for me each time. My presentation was a 30-minute version of the talk I gave earlier this year to the Experimental Cuisine Collective in NYC, How Chocolate Gets Its Taste . That talk was originally 90 minutes, so cutting it down to 30 while still presenting the essence was a challenge. By the time I gave it the fourth time I felt extremely comfortable with it. I did have another agenda for giving the talk as I am working on turning it into an eBook that I hope to have available for sale by the end of the year or in early 2013 at the latest.

Given the conference schedule and ancillary responsibilities (interviews), the days were very long and exhausting. I very much appreciated being asked to participate and I hope to be asked back next year. Not content to rest (on my laurels or anything), after the program ended on Wednesday, I assisted the Vercruysses in loading out and traveled with them to Kortrijk, where they live and where there shop is. I would be spending the night (or, more correctly, what was left of it), then catching a train to Brussels the next morning to visit Pierre Marcolini and Laurent Gerbaud.

Here's to Living The Chocolate Life,
:: Clay

PS.I did have an idea for chocolate tourism in Holland and Belgium that I look to be partnering up in, so stay tuned for that!

Does anyone know of a source for a wall calendar with chocolate as its theme? They have them for everything else - dogs, cats, sailboats, guitars, mountains - everything - but I've never seen one for chocolate. Any suggestions?