I’ve been wine tasting, cheese tasting, even olive oil tasting, so why not chocolate?

On Thursday night, Stephanie and I went to the official opening of the TCHO Factory Store on Pier 17 for a chocolate tasting. TCHO’s CEO is Louis Rosetto, the founder of Wired Magazine.

I’d previously taste-tested some beta samples of their chocolate which they were scoring for various attributes, like nuttiness and fruitiness. They weren’t adulterating the chocolate with artificial flavors, instead they were trying to discern the natural flavors of various types of cacao beans grown in various parts of the world.

Armed with that data, they’ve recently released four different chocolate bars: “Chocolatey”, “Fruity”, “Nutty”, and “Citrusy”. We sampled all four along with a little champagne. They definitely tasted different, though I’m not sure I’d be able to identify them blindfolded. After trying all four, we tasted chocolatey again, and it was totally different to my palate, almost raisiny.