Sight. Smell. Touch. Sound. Chocolate. I mean, Taste. These are the five senses through which we experience the world. And like when getting ready to run a marathon, if you work on developing those five senses, your experience of the world can become far more enriched. Train your senses to their utmost potential and you’ll never miss out on a single aspect of a true, complete experience again.
Wine tasters know this. Cheese tasters know this. They take their time and savor every aspect of their wine or cheese, allowing themselves to experience multiple new flavors without gorging themselves on any one kind. They engage all their senses and clean their palates carefully between each sip or bite.
Now it’s your turn to engage your five senses in the experience of your favorite delicacy: chocolate. Chocolate tasting sessions are happening all over the world, and there’s no reason why you can’t train your senses and lead a chocolate tasting session at home yourself—with friends or on your own. Below are some tips on the best ways to engage all five of your senses in chocolate:
Buy the right chocolate.
You could hold a chocolate tasting session with a few bars of chocolate you picked out at the last minute at the grocery store checkout, but if you’re going to go through the effort of engaging all five of your senses in the cocoa goodness, you may as well shell out a little extra cash for some better quality chocolate. It doesn’t even have to be a $250 truffle (which, yes, do exist here); just look for a high-cocoa content chocolate, perhaps one with a rich organic history and a well-documented roasting and drying process (article and article) that will enhance the flavor. Most chocolate tasting sessions offer between two to six different flavors of chocolate for the guests (or just you) to experience.
Sight
Begin your chocolate tasting session by engaging your sense of sight. The area devoted to chocolate tasting should be tastefully decorated in warm, velvety colors like burgundy and brown, which recall to mind the warm, comfortable flavor of chocolate. Hold the session in the evening and dim the lights or conduct the session with natural candlelight as your only source of glow. Arrange the chocolate pieces sans wrappers on large serving platters that compliment the color scheme and make sure to place a placard identifying the kind of cocoa near each plate. (Or if you want to have your guests conduct the tasting without preconceptions, make sure the placard is covered up at first or turned around.) Setting the mood is just the beginning of enhancing your sense of sight in chocolate. Have every person at the session take a good long look at each of the kinds of chocolate on the platters. Have them each keep a written survey of their responses. Which ones shine and entice them with their luster? Which ones are smooth and unblemished and which ones look a little more rustic and natural? Which one entices them the most on sight alone and why?
Touch
After everyone’s completed their sight sense responses, have them each grab one piece from each plate and place them on their own platter, being careful, if some look similar, to arrange them in the order they appear on the display table. Off to the side of the table, have each of them take their time and run their fingers over each piece in succession. Have them hold each piece, one at a time, in their hand and feel the chocolate from all surfaces. Which ones feel silky and smooth? Are there any that feel oily or waxy? On touch alone, what piece seems the most appetizing? After they hold each piece, they should record their observations.
Sound
Perhaps the least obvious way to experience chocolate, there are nevertheless at least two ways to engage your sense of hearing during your chocolate tasting session. First, to enhance the ambiance, consider playing some jazz or lounge music softly in the background of the testing area. Play any kind of music that, like chocolate, makes you feel cozy and relaxed. (So avoid the rock and hip hop.)
The second takes place after each tester has finished with their touch test. Have the guests take each piece of chocolate in their hands again one at a time and snap the piece in half. Have them record their reaction to each sound on their survey. Which ones snapped quickly with a hard, strong snap? Which ones snapped softly and dull? Which chocolates snapped cleanly and which crumbled apart? Which chocolate has the most appetizing sound to them?
Smell
Although tempting, avoid adding any scent to the testing area that you might think would make the testing area more warm and inviting. That means no scented candles or air fresheners. They may make the area more inviting, but they can really mess up your testing session. Smell, like taste, is one of two of the human senses that are chemically-based. You know that smelling a batch of cookies in the oven can make your mouth water as you phantom-taste the delights without even touching them. You don’t want your brain to be thinking "lavender" or "pumpkin spice" when it’s trying to enjoy the complete sensation of chocolate.
After each guest has snapped their chocolate pieces and recorded their reactions to the effect chocolate has on their senses of hearing, have them lift each piece of chocolate close to their nose in succession. As they engage their senses of smell, have them breathe in slowly, trying to identify any individual scents. How strong is the smell of cocoa? Do they smell orange, vanilla, or spice? Ask them to snap off a small piece of each chocolate one at a time and rub the piece of chocolate between two of their fingers near their nose. The melting of the chocolate should release new aromas. Have them record all of their observations and pick out which piece of chocolate seems the most appetizing on scent alone.
Taste
Finally, the part you’ve all been waiting for! Have each participant go from smell engagement to taste engagement by a little taste test that crosses them both. Have them break off a small piece of each kind of chocolate, plug their noses, and put the first piece of chocolate on their tongues. Tell them to think about how it tastes. Then have them let go of their noses and finish eating the chocolate, noticing any difference that being able to smell the chocolate will have on the taste. Have them repeat the process with each piece of chocolate, after they cleanse their palate with room-temperature water, dry unsalted crackers, or dry white bread.
Ask them to break off another small piece from each chocolate and place the first piece on the center of their tongues. Ask them to take notice of the point at which it melts. Does it melt slowly or quickly? Does it taste better once it’s melted? Next, have them swirl their tongues against the roof of their mouths, so that their entire tongue is coated in the melted chocolate.
Have them take notes on each stage of flavors as they emerge. Is there a bitterness, a sweetness, or both? Is there a nut or fruit flavor? How does the flavor change as the chocolate melts to nothingness? How long does the flavor last?
Have them cleanse their palates and continue the taste test with each piece. As before, they should pick out their favorite piece based on taste. But then have them look over their earlier answers to see if the best-tasting piece was the piece their senses of sight, touch, hearing, or smell found the most appetizing as well!
