Roasting is an art for sure. When I get beans I usually do a few small batches and go with the best roast. Blending is another art I hope to have some fun with.

I was reading an article recently about some coffee roaster who had just gotten his Q-Grader qualification. This appears to be an independent course / test that establishes how good your coffee palate is. Is there such a thing for chocolate? Would such a thing be useful now that there are now many small bean to bar chocolate operations, not to forget the large number of home brew chocolate makers? Would consumers be impressed if the roaster of their favorite bean to bar manufacturer had such a qualification? Would it make hiring a chocolate roaster easier if they had such a qualification assuming of course the industry becomes big enough for this sort of thing? Would it be useful for cocoa brokers to have such a qualification, so companies could feel more confident in purchasing beans? How would such a test be evaluated, single origin bars, well there are certainly enough bars from the same origin from different manufacturers. Would the test involve tasting the roasted bean or making a micro batch of liquor for evaluation as a drink or directly?

Anyway it is food for thought and I was just thinking out aloud above.

updated by @tom: 04/23/15 08:52:54