Down the Rabbit Hole of Flavor Profiling-Part 2
Flavors Speaking in Tongue
Now that we have explored one aspect of naming chocolates, wherein sounds form words, which become names leading to flavor fusions, resulting finally in a creative chocolate confection, let’s delve a little deeper and explore how the physical characteristics available to the sensory perception of taste, communicates its own name into auditory being!
As we know, there are six flavor qualities which occur in varying degrees in any given substance. They are sweet, sour, salty, bitter, astringent, and pungent. Naturally, in chocolate making, I deal primarily with the first three in the list; carefully interweaving accents of the latter to create interest. Now, some things are obvious, such as people’s unabashed love of chocolate and caramel, but have you ever thought about the varying degrees of flavor contexts that could be used to amplify the chocolate caramel experience? I have… quite extensively I might add. I dare to say, that in the name of all things Divani, we have hardly missed a beat in this arena.
Some of you may be familiar with our Gourmet Chocolate Caramels I presume? We have pushed the limits on what’s ‘normal’ when it comes to creating combinations based on these six flavors. Then, back to the naming thing, once a new chocolate caramel creation was made, I plopped that baby right in the center of my mouth, allowing it to coat every corner, then gently began to chew and “listen”.
No – I wasn’t waiting to hear the chocolate’s plea for help as I mercilessly devoured every bit of it, but rather for its essence to whisper its name into being. One of my favorite examples of this phenomena is the “Midnight Sun”. Fancy this – Semi-Sweet dark Belgian chocolate plated above and below a surprisingly vivid orange caramel center. It’s as if the solar life force of our galaxy were shining its blissful rays at the peak of night! It’s brilliant!
A few more examples of this profound naming process are as follows: Rumalicious, Berry Patch, and Gingerbread. And those are just the caramels! We also have Karmaluscious Barks such as Tropical Tease, Fluffernutter, and Allegheny Forest whose names divulge a depth of flavorificness! (So good they need a new word to define them.) And don’t even get me started on the creative beverages served in our cafe, and how these chocolate treats can easily be combined indefinitely with various drinks to create all new, yet to be named experiences!
By now, I’m pretty sure you’re hip deep in Wonderland, so I’ll just leave you with that for now. Of course, if you’d like to get belly deep… pay us a visit!
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