Videri Tasting Event
About a week ago, I attended a live chocolate tasting over Zoom lead by Videri chocolatier Sam Radel. (A friend of mine bought me the ticket as a gift!) Sam told us about how his chocolate is made, showed us some of the equipment he uses to make it, and answered questions. He also had us try four of Videri's single-origin 75% cacao bars, the dried beans used to make each, and two of their bonbons.
This post will have three parts: The event, the beans, and the single origin chocolate bars.
The Event
We were sent an agenda beforehand, which made me happy. I love agendas. It looked like this.
Welcome - How Videri makes bean to bar chocolate
Taste Lemon Ganache Bonbon
Single Origin Tasting: 75% Ecuador
Single Origin Tasting: 75% Guatemala
Taste Chewy Sesame Caramel Bonbon
Single Origin Tasting: 75% Dominican Republic
Single Origin Tasting: 75% Tanzania
I loved hearing from Sam about chocolate making, his vision for the company, and his experience of chocolate. My notes are pretty scattered, but here are some things that stuck with me:
Chocolate beans are the seeds of an edible fruit. I’ve never eaten the flesh of a chocolate pod, but Sam says that it’s like chewing on apple juice. His chocolates are very fruit-forward, in part because he wants to carry the origin of the beans into the finished product.
A matter of ten degrees difference in the roasting process has a substantial impact on the flavor. Much of the artistry in bringing out particular aromas and flavor notes happens while tasting the beans many times during different phases of roasting, finding out how each type of bean responds to different temperatures, and keeping the whole roasting environment at just the right temperature for just the right amount of time.
Videri’s facility is totally nut-free, and always has been. Sam’s cares a lot about making chocolate that people with nut allergies can safely enjoy. He’s also committed to trading honorably with the farmers who grow Videri’s beans. Listening to him, I got the impression of an artist whose inspiration comes mainly from the possibility of bringing joy to other people. I’m a bit aloof and thing-focused, myself. It was neat to get more of a feel for what chocolate is like for someone whose primary concern is people.
This was my first time at any kind of tasting event, and to be honest I didn't quite know how to approach it. As much as I like the idea and enjoyed listening to Sam tell us about his craft, the actual tasting part of this didn't go all that well for me.
The way I taste chocolate is a slow, meditative process. I like to focus all of my attention, to listen closely and carefully to what I'm experiencing as I taste. It takes me at least two minutes of silent concentration. Five, for the really good stuff. I wasn't able to do much of that while someone was telling me about the chocolate at the same time.
However, the tasting kit we got came with four whole bars (and matching beans—more on that later), so this didn't turn out to be too much of a problem. There was plenty of chocolate for me to do a quiet tasting on my own later.
(There were also two bonbons, which I didn’t realize at first were meant to be part of the tasting. I wolfed them down the moment they arrived. Oops. All I remember about them is that one was lemony, the other was sesame-y, and both were sweet yummy candy.)
My attempt to taste during the event also made it harder to hear what Sam was saying. My notes are full of things like, "How he builds the flavors: adjusts the temperature and time of roasting and... something about fans." I was just too overwhelmed to hear more than bits and pieces.
Next time I do something like this, I won't even try to listen carefully to the chocolate during the live event. Getting to hear from and interact with a professional who's passionate about chocolate would have been worth the price even if it hadn't been a gift. So next time, I'll just try to sink into that part of things during the event, and plan to do the actual tasting when it's over.
The Beans
The tasting kit came with chocolate bars from four locations: Ecuador, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, and Tanzania. Each bar came with two of the dried cacao beans it's made with.
I've known for a while that I don't have what it takes to appreciate chocolate bars made of 100% cacao, with no sugar or anything else at all. I've been meaning to do a 100% cacao tasting flight, in an attempt to build the skill.
But these beans presented an even better opportunity. I'd only tried a cacao bean one other time: To'ak also ships their chocolate bars with a whole bean. So I set aside some time to do a beans-only cacao tasting, and it was revelatory. Here is what I learned.
When you're tasting cacao beans, there are a dozen different things happening with the flavor and aroma, the loudest three of which are "what cacao beans taste like in general". In general, dry fermented cacao beans are bitter and acidic, and most of them have a bit of a melting tarmac thing going on.
If you want to perceive the distinctions between different cacao beans, the way to fail is to summarize the flavor experience even as you're having it, to hold a mental posture of reaching toward conclusion. You start out with the goal "find out what this bean tastes like", and from the moment you first inhale the scent, you're pushing to accomplish the goal. You're asking yourself over and over, "Do I know what it tastes like yet? How about now? How about now?" If each time you ask yourself that question, your brain immediately returns "yes: sharp bitter tarmac, mostly", then there will soon be a settling toward, "Yes, I know what this tastes like. I am done." If you do that, you'll cut off a lot of the experience, and mainly be aware of bitter acid tarmac. Which isn't very nice.
What makes cacao interesting is the extensive range of much subtler flavors that exist beside the loudest ones most cacao shares. So when you taste a cacao bean, you should start off with a motion of acknowledgement. "Ah yes, there is the sharp, the bitter, the tarmac." And you should follow that acknowledgement with an open invitation: "What else?"
If you've performed the acknowledgement step adequately, then your attention will begin to fall on many other aspects of the flavor experience, things that would be left out of any cursory summary. If you ask them to, those aspects will even fill up your experience, so that "sharp bitter tarmac" is a side note, in the background. And a lot of those subtler aspects are delightful: aromas of fruit, nuts, and flowers; emotions and memories triggered by each piece of the experience; associations that fill out your understanding of the cacao's character.
The main hurdle, for me, was learning that it's all right to merely acknowledge the strongest flavors. At first a part of me believed that if I was tasting tarmac, I was in danger, and that meant I needed to act on the flavor. I should spit it out, or not eat any more, or something. It took a bit of patience to develop familiarity, to show myself that this is just how fermented dry cacao beans taste, and in fact I am perfectly safe even as I taste melting tarmac.
I did three whole rounds of tasting these four beans before I felt that my way of attending did them justice. Once I knew that I was safe, I had the space to acknowledge and invite.
Here are my notes from the third round of tasting Videri's cacao beans.
Ecuador
Flooooriiiiid. Deep sunny sweet dried flowers over papaya and light almond oil. Warming in my mouth: It's quiet at first. Then the flowers start. Jasmine and toasted almond. Chewing: It's so gentle. Takes a while for bitterness to show up, and it's very calm. It's such a light, kind, space-holding sort of flavor, like someone sitting with you in in a sunny meadow by a corn field listening.
Guatemala
Smells like orange rind and a half-burnt oak log left in the fire pit the next morning. Warming in my mouth: Immediately lime. A little bit of black pepper, too. Chewing: Lots of lime, then it spreads out into black tea and more orange rind. It feels like using a garden rake to break up and even out the soil.
Dominican Republic
Smells of dark brown flowers and skipping to school in the morning. Warming in my mouth, it reminds me of persimmons and figs, and there's an earthy flavor like darjeeling tea. Chewing: Super sharp, surprisingly florid, gosh yeah if you told me this was from Ecuador I'd believe you. Interestingly the sharpness fades quickly. It's like apple juice and orange blossom honey.
Tanzania
Smells chocolaty! That dark rich cocoa scent like the cocoa hull mulch I use in my garden. I also think I smell flowers. It's an awful lot like that grape iris I smelled that one time in Berkeley, but like dried cherries instead of grape koolaid. Warming in my mouth: Less sharp than the others. Chill and nutty, like roasted acorn squash seeds specifically. Chewing: Super bright and sharp for just a moment, then it mellows to fruity cherry, then the bitter tarmic. It moves very quickly. The dried cherries here are super strong and distinctive.
The Bars
Ecuador
Aroma: Oh gosh a whole bouquet of flowers. God I love Ecuadorian chocolate. This scent just makes me so happy. It's like I woke up from a nap in the sun to find that someone has given me a necklace of gardenia blossoms and set a pineapple margarita by my side.
Flavor: Something a little bit wheaty and powdery, like white flour. Then... oh what is that, something hard to recognize. A middle note I'll have to come back to. Then a high bright sharpness quite suddenly, like peaches at the bottom of a yogurt cup. The middle note has something to do with flowers, but it's subtle. Yeah, I connect with it more easily when I go back to the smell. It's a cooler, dimmer undertow of the gardenia blossoms. But once the fruitiness develops, they're very hard to pick out.
Guatemala
Aroma: Fruity and a hint of… soap? I love that these come in enclosed foil-lined packets, because once you tear the top off you can stick your nose in just like a glass of wine. Raspberries. Reminds me of climbing trees. Especially the feeling of tiny twigs breaking off under my hands as I negotiate my grip on the next branch. There's something a little florid in here too, but a sharp fruity florid, like hibiscus tea.
Flavor: Right away, it's got a sharp fruit thing, and also a bit of flowers. Some bitterness shows up as the fruitiness develops. It's sour enough to make the back of my cheeks pucker just a little. But it's a fairly smooth sourness. I'm still getting a feeling of climbing trees. Scraped knees and sticky sap and striving, but toward something fun and playful. It's got kind of a gritty alive realness, like when your emotions are close to the surface and you experience them and process them fluidly in the moment as you act.
Dominican Republic
Aroma: Fruity, with some softness like ivory cream. Blackberry bubblegum. Also a very classic deep chocolate scent behind the fruit that reminds me of hot drinks and sunrises on cold mornings.
Flavor: Soft smooth milky like an oatmeal bath, then a high-pitched fruit like lime or even lemon. It kind of swirls around. The brightness of the citrus flavor really dominates here. It's like a marching band with a piccolo section in front, and the color guard twirling red and yellow flags in the back. What's in the middle of the band? Something close to the ground. Geckos.
Tanzania
Aroma: Dried fruit and a little bit of soapiness. Butter and brown sugar with lemon, like the sticky liquid part of an apple pie filling. There's something dark and solid here, like a rich old man's cherry wood writing desk. Surprisingly little "chocolate" in this scent.
Flavor: A little powdery at first. The a roundness that's also sharp. Sharp and sour intensify and resolve into dried cherries. The powder stays all the way through the first minute. This is the darkest of these four chocolates. A tiny bit of pipe tobacco here, too. A white-haired man in a smoking jacket having whiskey and cherry cordials.
Reflections
The Tanzania bar is my personal favorite. It's well-rounded but still assertive.
I think it's interesting how often things related to childhood show up as I'm tasting chocolate. Some chocolate involves a lot of maturity, like the Tanzania bar; but more of it reminds me of what it's like to be a kid. I hadn't remembered in this much detail what it's like to climb a tree as a child since I was a child myself, until I tasted the Guatemala bar.
It's never been quite the same as an adult. When I've climbed trees as an adult, I've been way more self-aware. It's been like I'm holding the whole experience in an internal bucket, keeping some distance from it and checking each part against my self image, my standards for safety, and probably some other things. Climbing trees as a child was much more direct. Videri's Guatemalan chocolate is similarly direct.
The Dominican Republic chocolate is a bit too bright for me. I suspect there are more subtle things happening underneath, but I can't quite hear them through all the citrusy fanfare.
I'm feeling that there's sort of a thesis to the whole Videri line. All of these chocolates are complex, but it seems that a lot of care and effort has gone into highlighting whatever fruitiness exists, perhaps even when it means covering up what I'd personally consider the cacao's strongest character attributes. It's not necessarily the wrong thing to do, but it's certainly a bold aesthetic proclamation.
I think there's something really cool about someone saying, "I love fruit in chocolate, and I want to show off the particular capacities for fruitiness that cacao from each of these different sources possesses." I think that must be what Sam set out to do here. Much of what he said during the tasting event is in line with that, and I think he's succeeded magnificently.
A Final Note
I emailed Sam afterward to ask whether Videri has any more single origin Zoom tastings planned. He said that at the moment, they don’t. However, if you go to Videri’s site and sign up for their newsletter, you’ll hear about any such plans in the future. You’ll also get a 10% discount off your first order.
