Chocolate is the new gourmet indulgence par excellance. A few decades ago, people had very little knowledge of fine chocolate, less about truffles and bonbons.
Now, young and old have begun to enjoy chocolates, and, along with demand, more chocolate manufacturers are supplying major North American cities.
Chocolate flavour much depends on where the cocoa beans grew; the best are criollo from Venezuela, and northern Colombia.
Forastero beans grow in most Central American countries and west coast Africa, mostly the Ivory Coast and Ghana.
Chocolate as we know it today Spanish confectioners invented modern techniques, once the beans arrived in Europe. Then other European countries started producing their own versions – today French manufacturers excel in dark chocolate, the Swiss in more creamy and “milky” varieties, and the Belgians tend towards more cocoa oriented and dry tastes.
The quality of chocolate not only depends on the region of origin of cocoa beans, but also on
the cocoa fat content and length of “conching” before the mass is cooled then poured into forms for packaging.
Swiss manufacturers like Suchard, Nestle, Lindt, Alpenrose, Mastrianni, and Tobler enjoy world wide reputation, but Neuhaus, Callebaut, Cote d’Or in Belgium have millions of followers, and French manufacturers – Valrhona, M. Cluziel excel in quality of dark chocolate.
Many countries produce chocolate i.e. Canada, Japan, Venezuela, the U S A, the U.K. Germany, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Russia, Italy, Spain, to name a few.
The best-known chocolate producing countries are Belgium, Switzerland, and France all of which have well developed distribution networks and supporting establishments to help grow sales.
Valrhona, located in Tain-Hermitage in the Rhone Valley is one of France’s best chocolate producers, and makes fine block chocolate for confectionary used in restaurants, hotels, and pastry shops.
It also makes “grand cru” chocolates at different cocoa fat contents with a range of flavour characteristics – Tanariva 30 per cent, Jivara 40, Manjari and Tainori 64, Caraibe and Alpaco 66, Gunaja 70, and Abinao 85.
Valrhona also produces organic chocolates (Cao Grande Noir 70 cocoa, and Cao Grande Lait 30) from estate grown beans in Palmira, Venezuela, Gran Couva in Trinidad and Apamakia in Madagascar all at 64 cocoa fat.
I tasted all and concluded that their intensity and aftertaste are the longest most satisfying.
In addition to the above, Valrhona produces chocolate bonbons – Orizaba, Seduction Cappuccino, Addiction Amanda, Addiction Pampelmousse, Seduction Poire, Seduction Bergame, Addiciton Croquante, and Addiciton Cardamome.
This is the only manufacturer in the world with a specialized school to train confectioners and even amateurs who like to produce their own truffles.
Valrhona chocolates are available in Quebec and Ontario in selected high-end stores.
For location log on to euro-excellence.ca Or Valrhona.com

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Tags: CHOCOLATE, VALRHONA

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 06:00 and is filed under Products we like.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.