What is this chocolate blog all about?

So what is this Ultimate Chocolate Blog about anyway?  It's pretty obvious, but let me tell you in my own words.  It's about chocolate. It's about all flavours of chocolate and all forms of chocolate. Although the focus will be on finer chocolate and often on dark chocolate, I will also, at times, write about milk and white chocolate because I have developed a certain level of appreciation and passion for the sweeter stuff over the years.

So who is this blog for?  It's for chocolate-obsessed people like me who are addicted to the "new" factor in chocolate tasting.  For instance, I am addicted to constantly trying new chocolate flavours, brands, cocoa percentages, origin chocolates and any type of chocolate bar that I have not tasted before.  Once upon a time ago I would try a new chocolate, then go back to that same one time and time again.  But then I went to France for a year and it changed my chocolate-tasting life. There were so many different brands and types of chocolate there and I wanted to try them all! Now I need to try new types of chocolate all the time, by different manufacturers.  Don't get me wrong, I will often go back to the same chocolate bar for an indulgence, if I can find it again. But most often I just want to try a new type of chocolate every single day.  And I do eat chocolate every single day.

In this blog I will focus on chocolate bars - usually in the 35 to 100 gram format - but will sometimes write about different types of chocolate treats or snacks, baking chocolate, chocolate couverture for professional chocolate making, and other forms of fine chocolate.  I do not discriminate when it comes to this wonderful substance.

This blog does not contain pretentious chocolate tasting information.  I will not often be discussing with a pretentious air the specific aromas and flavours in the chocolate. That will only confuse people as they taste.  Instead, I will be focusing on the emotions that the chocolate evokes and the experience that the combined flavours, textures and aromas create for the chocolate taster.  I might make recommendations as to when to eat that chocolate (i.e. if you are having a sad day and want an uplifting dark chocolate, try a Lindt Excellence 70% to "smooth" out your problems, or if you are having an indecisive day, try a chocolate bar with sea salt and experience the balance between sweet and salty to help you find the solution that meets all your needs). At times I may look to certain berries and flavours that may help us with learning to taste the specific aromas in chocolate, so we can all learn together.  But I'd rather have fun tasting and learning about chocolate, without worrying too much about tasting "properly" and according to standard rules. This blog is for people like me, who want to experience chocolate while learning about it and about which flavour combinations they like best.  And as I said before, it is also for those people who, like me, are addicited to "newness", meaning an addiction to constantly trying new flavours and needing to taste every kind of chocolate that exists and all the existing chocolate flavour combinations. This could take a life time.

My goal is to reach out to people like me, and perhaps offer ideas of new chocolates to try from regions nearby and from around the world.

I think it's time to start tasting, don't you? Read my next blog post to try some new single-origin chocolate from Costa Rica and Peru!