Chocolate – I have been introduced to a whole new world…
In early December I attended a tutored tea tasting at the Tea and Coffee Festival at Southbank (behind the Royal festival Hall) and afterwards got chatting to Yael Rose, who runs The Chocolate Festival at the same location. She invited me along to this weeks event, so yesterday I popped along to check it out.
Crossing the Hungerford Bridge was an experience in itself, with all the buskers in a festive spirit (even the steel drums player was belting out Christmas carols), and as you approached the south side of the Thames the strains of familiar festive songs were in the air, being played to the visitors of the Southbank Christmas Market.
I hadn’t expected to see Chocolate Festival tents on the raised section and it became immediately obvious that the event was a great deal larger than the Tea and Coffee Festival of a few weeks before. There were crowds of people, at least 3 deep, trying to jostle for position and a chance to speak to the stall holders, and who were all eager to grab any morsels of chocolate based products that were offered as tasters.
There was clearly a demand for chocolate of all types and price ranges.
The public required no education in order to enjoy the product they were buying. This is a completely different direction to the way the coffee scene is heading.
For the more creative chocolate lovers there were chocolate masterclasses, where some of the chocolate scenes’ finest talent took to the stage to teach people how to make various chocolate based products, or give tutored tastings on how best to enjoy and what tastes to look out for in chocolate.
The chocolate cookery theatre was packed each time I walked past. Next year I will book myself onto several sessions.
There were some great chocolate pairings at the festival, with the chilli & chocolate getting my vote for being the most outrageous combination. The smell was amazing, and seeing a massive pot of steaming chilli in the middle of a chocolate festival made me smile.
I’m keen to explore how some of the chocolate on offer can be paired with coffee – they sit well together as evidenced by Penny University’s tasting flight which included 3 coffee’s and matched chocolates – and would like to see more of this type of experience in coffee shops.
There are also many different chocolate products on the market that can be used to make Mochaccinos or Chocolattes and I’d like to taste more of these.
I’ve noticed over the past few years that I have become more fussy with raw ingredients and tasting some of the chocolates yesterday has put me off many of the mass-produced chocolate bars in the market. I’ll be searching out more artisan producers who know where their cocoa beans come from. Suggestions of reading materials or information sources is always welcomed.
For details of future Chocolate Festivals in the UK visit the Festival Chocolate website
eightpointnine makes coffee blending accessible to the masses
This morning I am enjoying a lovely coffee roasted by eightpointnine – a new entrant to the UK coffee roasting scene.
That in itself is not newsworthy, but what eightpointnine does differently is makes coffee blending accessible to the masses.
A visit to their website opens up a range of taste possibilities, without having to understand too much about blending.
Simply click the link to the eightpointnine website, move the sliders to your preferred tastes, choose either wholebean or ground options, enter the discount voucher code supplied (first box free and ongoing discounts thereafter) and sit back and wait for the postie to drop 150g of coffee through your front door, in a box designed to fit through standard letter boxes.
Inside the box is a cleverly designed summary of your blend, expected tasting notes and even a handy brew recipe
Get a free box of coffee from eightpointnine.com with this code R8X4KBB
To start yourself off try my Sweet Tooth Blend, or create your own
You can go back and re-order previous blends or keep trying new variations.
The idea is simple but the execution is excellent. I was pleasantly surprised to find the tasting notes tucked beneath the bag of beans, and could immediately see what I was getting via the clear window on the front of the bag.
I wish eightpointnine well and hope they will be well received in the marketplace.
CoffeeTools App Review
I like the easy to use interface, navigable with one hand (on the iPhone or iPad) which calculates the extration ratio based on your ground coffee weight and extraction weights, entered directly onto the screen using sliders and rolling drop downs.
I prefer to use Celcius, however you can easily change between Fahrenheit and Celcius depending on who you are sharing brew recipes with
Atthough apps and tools don’t replace taste they can help you quickly get to a starting point.
This has also allowed me to track a coffee as the bag aged, and I could predict how I should dose / extract the next shot to achieve the desired result (taste)
Personally I would like to see extra fields added over time (eg price paid for bag of beans / grind setting (for use on stepped grinders) / Extract MoJo or TDS readings / pressure profile used)
All things considered, this is an App I am glad I have on my Apple devices, which can help with your extractions and I’m confident this will be used and referred to frequently
For more screenshots visit the CoffeeTools App website
You can download the App from iTunes by clicking this link
Sensory Experiences
I’ve made it a mission this year to try everything put in front of me where taste and smell is concerned.
I know what I like to eat and found I often stuck to the same dishes in restaurants, but in taking the challenge to try anything once have discovered that some of the old foods I previously disliked can now be incorporated into my diet.
The side-effect of this is that I am building up a better vocab of taste descriptors and an even better smells reference bank.
Whilst in Colonna & Smalls (Bath) I was introduced to the Le Nez du Cafe aroma collection – made up of 36 commonly found aromas in coffee. I have previously used (and found very useful) the Le Nez du Vin – wine aromas kit, but have never owned one (due to the high entry price – approx £200 for the Le Nez du Cafe collection)
However, having spent an hour smelling and debating the scents I can now see the value in this.
Last night I had an opportunity to sample 19 single hopped IPAs brewed by Mikkeller, a Danish brewery, at an event held by The Bottle Shop in Kernel Brewery’s premises near London Bridge.
When tasting these I drew on my wine and coffee aroma knowledge, but also discovered more aromas not usually found in coffee (the hop and malt characteristics) as well as a new set of citrus smells.
Drinking the beer was in many ways similar to the coffee tasting experience, as the tongue came alive with different hops passing over it and you could easily identify the salty, bitter, sweet, sour and savory sensations, but with less astringency or bitterness than some coffees display.
Armed with the beer equivalent of the coffee tasting wheel, as a group we debated the merits of each hop and referenced it against the taste /aroma wheel, discussing and agreeing which tastes were present and coming up with suitable descriptions of our own.
Like coffee tasting sessions, the beer tasting was best enjoyed as a group experience. combining people with a lot & only a little subject knowledge. Around our table last night we had an eclectic mix of people from top baristas with great palates, to musicians, social workers, computer technicians and former bar managers, ensuring all points of view were explored.
So, apart from now having a good excuse to nip down to the local you can start to accumulate a wider range of taste and smell sensations
My advice is to just grab anything and everything you can get your hands on, and smell & taste away. You never know what the next cup of coffee will present to you.
Hampton Court Foodies Festival 2011
When we heard that the Hampton Court Foodies Festival was on again this year we jumped at the chance to buy tickets as last years show was so much fun, with a nice selection of producers and some interesting tastes and ideas to take away.
We set off early in anticipation of a good car park and the chance to see the stalls before the crowds arrived. As we approached the Palace gates we found that the venue had moved to the green, over the road from last years home in the walled gardens of Hampton Court Palace.
The layout was more funfair than food fair
The layout was more funfair than food fair, and there was acres of wide open space this year, which meant the festival had lost its engaging, intimate, home producer feel and has lept head first into commercial festival territory.
Arriving bang on the advertised start time, we found ourselves about 150 people deep in the queue, and waited, and waited, and waited for the gates to open (approx 20 minutes late…)
we were served a lovely Flat White
Filing in slowly, we made a beeline for a coffee, and found ourselves at the Transition Espresso tent where we were served a lovely Flat White by barista Callum Thomson and owner Kate Tawil.
The show was laid out in a long rectangular shape this year with marquees and stands around the outside, and rows of tented stalls crisscrossing the pavilion.
a sugar-coated road to riches
Coffee in hand we worked our way around the western perimeter and sampled a variety of Balsamic Vinegars, Dukkas and Curries before heading toward the sugar zone – the glut of cupcake stalls that now dominates these types of events. It seems that every man and his dog has jumped on this bandwagon and it would appear to be a sugar-coated road to riches for event organisers.
At last years show there was such diversity of suppliers, and a different taste experience at every turn, which we had expected to see this year too.
Even by the time we left (about 1200) a number of stallholders were still in the throes of setting up.
The most impressive stall was the Tregothnan Tea stand which hosted the only tea grown in England. Hopefully the sun comes out over the next 2 days so that their seats and space can be fully utilised
The rain stayed away for our visit this year and there no need to dodge the rain drops like last time.
We came home with 4 tantalising flavours of fudge from yumyumtreefudge.com, Smoked Chilli Jelly from lilys-chillies.co.uk, a selection of ice-creams from Simply icecream, a punnet of sundried tomato stuffed olives, some zingy Pineapple Jamaican Jerk Sauce from The Backyard Co, and 9 bags of Apple crisps from Perry Court Farm.
I think I’ll stick to visiting farmers markets for the rest of the year, where there are no entry costs, and we can put money in the pockets of producers, not promoters
