West African cocoa and Gourmet chocolate
Posted in: Opinion
Thank you so much for this.
I don't think there is a danger of mainstream mild WA cocoas being lost to flavour. Take out Cameroon and the minor producers and we have basically CI, Ghana and Nigeria and 60% of world production. If that became flavour it would then be bulk flavour and consequently too mainstream to be unique. The bulk boys could not/would not pay a premium for such big quantities! (They might charge for a resulting product but certainly would not pay!!)
I agree on Gourmet. For me it is a tag people give themselves for their own ego trips and to prove they are "superior" to mere mortals like me with disturbingly underdeveloped taste buds and a dastardly poor knowledge of the 'finer' aspects of life, or, they give to their products to charge inflated prices. (I have a similar opinion of wine and wine connoisseurs who are really tripping most of the time.)
However, would you say that where planting materials, post harvest practices, etc are givens in that the trees are where they are in a given soil with a given climate (albeit variable season on season) and customary fermenting and drying systems, that a (unique) flavour can more usually be developed during the roasting? Is this the only time during processing?
I recall from PNG when I lived there that Rowntree went great lengths to identify and approve particular plantations and would buy by "plantation mark" only. (The fact that we used to buy in from other plantations to increase our supplies to them is purely incidental!!) However, my point is, would it be necessary to go to these lengths to identify good sources of WA flavour cocoa sources?
Are there other fora around the world where cocoas compete for the same kudos?
No new glasses required - you changed it to 14!!