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"    Yesterday was one of those it&amp;#039;s-rough-to-be-an-editor afternoons. At the invitation of the National Confectioners Association&amp;#039;s Chocolate Council, I took the subway down to a cozy loft in Tribeca for an afternoon of sampling chocolates with assorted writers and foodies (and making those majestic staring-off-into-space faces people always seem to use when they&amp;#039;re trying to identify &amp;quot;flavor notes&amp;quot;). Our hosts were Jacques Torres, master of all things chocolate, and food scientist Rose Potts; Jacques and Rose walked us through the history and production of chocolate, from the Mayans&amp;#039; sacred ceremonies two thousand years ago on up to the chocolate-covered Cheerios Jacques sent home with us yesterday afternoon. (Note: chocolate Cheerios, like chocolate-covered pretzels, have that unexpected-note-in-a-candy thing that makes them extra-addictive. I&amp;#039;m not alone in wanting to figure them out at home.) One of my favorite parts of the presentation came early, when we each tried a spoonful of the fresh, sweet white pulp from a fresh Puerto Rican cocoa pod.        It&amp;#039;s lovely, but it tastes nothing like chocolate: it&amp;#039;s got a mild, delicate flavor, like a melon, almost. In Central and South America, it&amp;#039;s blended and served as a smoothie-like drink; since there are no cacao trees in America (and it&amp;#039;s currently rather tricky to import foodstuffs that require refrigeration), we aren&amp;#039;t so lucky.  On the finished-product front, on the other hand, we&amp;#039;re in good shape. Jacques and Rose brought along four flights of chocolate and walked us through everything from smooth, consistent, 32% cacao milk chocolate all the way up through fruity, spiky, 70% cacao Venezuelan dark chocolate. It was rather like a wine tasting, actually, as we learned to consider characteristics I&amp;#039;d never really thought about before (such as how the bar sounds when you break off a piece \u2013 chocolate with a lot of cocoa butter makes a good snap, while chocolate with milk solids breaks more softly) and think about how the chocolate&amp;#039;s flavor developed (is it one consistent impression, or a few that present at different times?). We concluded with a taste of Jacques&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;Hearts of Passion,&amp;quot; which are little bonbons made with fresh passion fruit and liqueur (he likes to create bonbons with a burst of strong flavor that presents right away, he explained). All in all, it was a lovely afternoon \u2013 one that I might revisit by hosting an event of my own at some point. You know, for science. For Jacques&amp;#039;s tips on how to host a chocolate tasting party, check out a video from Food Network. Happy tasting! (And be sure to practice your Expert Face. Hint: Eyebrows.) "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/food-recipes/advice/a6006/chocolate-deconstructed/>