Recently Rated:
When I recently wanted to blog about a Amsterdam-based bean-to-bar chocolate maker I realized that I never properly introduced 'bean-to-bar' on my own blog . 
Now I finally made a brief drawing to roughly illustrate the process from tree to chocolate with a focus on the flavor developing steps (which is: fermentation, roasting, conching). Hard to hide my science background I guess... 
On my blog post about chocolate making you can also find a higher resolution version of the illustration. Hope you like it. Since so many chocolate making experts are sitting here: Let me know if you find some major misconceptions or have any other type of suggestions! Thanks.
Amsterdam is not only an extremely pretty city. It also offers some great options for chocolate lovers and its chocolate scene was growing fast during the last few years, so I now list the best Amsterdam chocolate locations on my blog . There are many very decent chocolatiers and some really excellent ones. There is a fantastic chocolate bar shop specialized in high quality single origin chocolates. There are even two local bean-to-bar chocolate manufacturers (Chocolatemakers + Metropolitan). Further, there is a growing number of annual chocolate events and meetings such as Chocoa or the Origin Chocolate Event .
Certainly worth a visit I'd say 
Here's for example the city's chocolatiers:
Metropolitan
My personal Amsterdam favorite. Pretty reductionist design and made from great own bean-to-bar chocolate and with fantastic ganache fillings. Try the Jalapeno or the Mandarin or the Lemon Yes!
Patisserie Kuyt
Arguably the finest of Amsterdams more traditional styled bonbons. The pleasantly small sized bonbons look like they come right from a confectioners textbook. And they taste great!
Van Velzes
Sympathetic small chocolatier in Amsterdam Oost making pretty and very decent pralines. Van Velze doesnt pretend to be fancy and revolutionary and sticks to traditional style ganache fillings of very good quality. Definitely worth it!
Puccini Bomboni
Many people rave about Puccinis bonbons. I dont, they are far too big and massive for my liking. But they clearly do look good and have nice flavor combinations. Their bonbons are handmade in Amsterdam and are sold at three different locations in the city center.
Unlimited Delicious
Used to be a place to also look for unconventional pralines. That is much less the case right now. Still, their bonbons are well-made and worth a try. Then again, I find the flavors too timid, too much aiming at everybodys convenience. But try their classic, the Rosemary-Sea-salt and youll see what they are capable of.
Patisserie Holtkamp
Pragmatic Dutch bonbons. Not impressive looking, but then tasting so much better than expected. Fine taste and very traditional flavor combinations. And be warned you will have a hard time not also taking one of their many pastries along as soon as you enter their shop.
Madame Pompadour
You like the good old bonbon and dont feel like trying those new-fashioned samples with stuff like Jalapeno (Metropolitan) or Rozemary seasalt (Unlimited delicious) flavors? Right. Nothing wrong with that. Just traditional, handmade, fine chocolates? Madame Pompadour might look like the ideal place for that. And it is indeed not bad, but I somehow prefer the classic flavored bonbons from Kuyt, Holtkamp, or Van Velze.
It took me a while to go through Amsterdam's chocolatiers with detailed blog posts . There's always personal favorites... and I knew from the beginning which was my number one chocolatier in town (although I like some other places quite a lot, too!). Anyway, when it comes to pralines/bonbons/chocolates, my favorite is: Metropolitan . Most notably: they are one of the VERY few chocolatiers that actually make their own chocolate from bean to bar! Delicious!
In a previous post I wrote about the two most famous chocolatiers in Amsterdam. Yesterday I focused on a far less known chocoholic place in this city on my blog: Van Velze's . The chocolaterie and patisserie was founded by Robbert van Velze and Deborah Kilroy more than 5 years ago, but remains one of the less known chocolate place in Amsterdam. This might be due to its location in Amsterdam Oost, which is still a fairly underrated part of the city. However, van Velze is just another good reason for a short visit of Oost. Van Velze offers a small but good selection of bonbons, as well as other chocolate products and tartes. The bonbons are traditionally enrobed chocolates, mostly with ganache fillings. They use single origin chocolate for their products and have a number of very good flavor combinations. If I'm correct, the chocolate actually comes from Costa Rica and is made by Belcolade in Belgium (far less known than Callebaut, Belcolade is another big chocolate manufacturer in Belgium).
Among my favorites was the Port/Cranberry, which has a very delicious dark ganache filling and a dark chocolate coating. I also enjoyed the Red Wine/Licorice, which somewhat surprised me. Personally, I found none of the red wine or a licorice chocolates I ate up till now really convincing. Yet the mixture of red wine and licorice combines astonishingly well, I found. The acidity and fruitiness of the red wine is nicely complemented by the sweet, herbal taste of the licorice.
Some of Van Velze's chocolates...
I looked a little more into cacao genetics, so here are some thoughts on this issue as posted on my blog . Let me know what you think...
When entering the world of high-quality chocolates you immediately get confronted with a number of categories in order to understand or classify a chocolate. There is the technical aspect of the chocolate manufacturer: roasting, conching, adding cocoa butter. But all of this can only enhance or suppress the flavors that come from the cacao bean itself. Prior to fermentation and drying it typically comes with two major labels: geographical origin, and cacao variety. At first that seemed to make sense to me, but the more I think (and read) about it, the less I buy it.
Geographical origin. Lets for a millionth time stress the wine analogy: It is clear that different climates and heights (as well as different soils) could have a big impact on the final fruit and its flavors. All cacao, however, anyway growth in the tropics. Sure, there will be differences between the equator and 20 north or south, but its not that the tropical climate in Asia, Africa and South America differs a lot in its major factors being sun, humidity, temperature. So is it the soil? Honestly, I doubt it. It might play a role but the soil probably varies nearly as much within a continent as it does between continents. So why should an African cacao taste like X , an Asian one like Y , and an American one like Z ? Doesnt make sense to me. My guess would rather be that different cacao tree varieties have been established and evolved in different places.
So now we come to cacao varieties and thats another puzzling thing. There is Criollo and Forastero, and Trinitario which is supposed to be a mix of both. This classification dates back to the 1940s and has now become the standard for categorizing cacao varieties in the business.
Too bad that it turns out to be much more complicated. For many fruits and vegetables, varieties are fairly well classified, meanwhile of course genetically as well. Not for cacao. This brings practical issues such as how to check if a 100% Criollo bar is really 100% Criollo if you actually cannot decide on what tree still produces pure Criollo beans. Thinking of high-end chocolates it probably also means that the classification is too coarse to account for the huge variety of possible flavor differences.
Over the last decade scientists have tried to use genetics to better understand where cacao comes from, how it evolved, and what the different current (and past) varieties are (and were). In 2008, a group of scientists presented a thorough genetic analysis of cacao bean varieties from South and Central America and concluded that it makes sense to at least distinguish 10 varieties. They labeled them Maraon, Curaray, Criollo, Iquitos, Nanay, Contamana, Amelonado, Purs, Nacional, and Guiana. Besides Criollo, you might have heard of Amelonado and Nacional. All other terms are not common use (yet?).
Those findings do not necessarily contradict the common three categories Criollo, Trinitario, and Forastero, but they strongly indicate that especially a category as Trinitario could be far too broad to do the diversity of its members justice. Or what do you think?
References:
- Motamayor JC, Lachenaud P, da Silva e Mota JW, Loor R, Kuhn DN, et al. (2008) " Geographic and Genetic Population Differentiation of the Amazonian Chocolate Tree (Theobroma cacao L) ". PLoS ONE 3(10): e3311.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003311
- Louis E. Grivetti, Howard-Yana Shapiro (2009) "Chocolate - History, Culture, Heritage"
Amsterdam is a beauty, no doubt about that. But it is clearly no chocolate celebrity like Paris or Brussels. In a way that's a shame (after all it got the biggest cocoa harbor in the world). However, as already mentioned on this site quite some time ago, things are getting better and better. Selflessly, I hence decided to give Amsterdam candy makers and chocolatiers a try and blog about it (it's touch, I know). With similarly dubious excusses I also started my own blog.
I started with Amsterdam's two most popular chocolatiers: Puccini Bomboni and Unlimited Delicious . Both have been around for many years and follow fairly different concepts.
Sweet, pretty chocolates at Puccini Bomboni (Amsterdam, NL)
Puccini makes impressive hand-made bonbons. Impressive in two ways: they are beautiful (see picture!) and MASSIVE. Literally. Every bonbon weights about three times as much as a traditionally shaped one. Economically that seems to be a smart move, as it drastically reduced the labor needed per weight. The size, however, really obstructs the pleasure of eating them for me. One of their chocolates and Im done.
Most have fairly classical ganache fillings. Some of the fruitier ones are very fruity, which I liked (plum pruim for example). In blogs and forums I found many people mentioning fancy, non-standard flavors, often refering to their pepper bonbon as a sign for crazyness. But every chocolatier nowadays does spices and other stuff, so I would say there is not much original about that. I know, I sound a bit negative. In fact, the bonbons are not bad at all! Its rather that I expected something more. My main criticism is that Puccini bonbons are too big and lack finesse (or however youd call it). Too rough, unsubtle.
Cakes and chocolates at Unlimited Delicious (Amsterdam, NL)
In several respects it's quite the opposite if it comes to Unlimited Delicious . Their pieces look less original then the Puccini ones, but I find that they are nice and small, which makes them better to eat than the Puccini monster bonbons.
I tasted quite a lot of their bonbons by now and they generally are professionally made, technically flawless bonbons, mostly with silky textured ganache fillings.Tasty and creamy, nothing to complain about you could think. But somehow... I really miss some more courage, bravery, or excitement. Many bonbons are just too well-behaved and hence on the boring side. Not all, though. Some are great and delicious, like their long-time classic "Rosemary Sea Salt". If you happen to be closeby some day, give it a try.