READING 1 B1

My unusual job
Sophie Curtis, chocolate taster
Everyone wants my job. It’s the best
job in the world. Basically, I get paid to
do something that most people do for
pleasure: eat chocolate. As well as this, I
get to travel all over the world, and meet
all sorts of interesting people. It’s a dream
job really.
People expect chocolate tasters to be fat. In fact, most people in this business are fairly
slim. I eat less chocolate than a lot of my friends – on average, between 50g and 100g a day.
A small square or two is usually enough when I’m tasting. Besides, I have never eaten huge
amounts of chocolate. Quality, not quantity is what’s important to me.
Women make better chocolate tasters than men – fact. Scientific tests prove that women
have a better sense of taste than men. We’re especially good at tasting the bitter flavours
that are found in dark chocolate. In my experience, most good chocolate tasters are women.
I have what’s known as a ‘good nose’, i.e. a good sense of smell. Without a sense of smell, taste is
nothing. Eat your favourite chocolate bar when you have a bad cold and you’ll know what I mean.
In the interview for my present job, I took a ‘taste test’. I was asked to name the hidden
flavours in ten different pieces of chocolate. I recognised nine of them. I had no qualifications
for the job and no experience but I had what was needed.
You need a good imagination to put flavours together. Sometimes I dream about
ingredients that will go together. I’m not afraid of mixing flavours, like goat’s cheese and
pear, or chilli peppers and coconut. Colleagues think some of my suggestions sound crazy
– until they try them.
It’s the best feeling in the world when I’m in a store and I see a customer buying a product
that I’ve helped to create.
I have a kitchen attached to my office. Most days I spend two or three hours preparing
chocolate and mixing ingredients until I achieve the perfect flavour. It’s the creative part of
my job and the bit that I love most.
People spoil their experience of eating chocolate by eating too fast. Eat slowly and take
time to really enjoy the flavours. And make sure your chocolate is the same temperature as
the room – cold chocolate straight from the fridge tastes of nothing.
Chocolate fashions come and go. Ten years ago, no one ate salt with their chocolate. Now
it’s everywhere you go. For me, this just adds to the interest. Salty chocolate may disappear
in five years’ time. What will replace it?
My career won’t last forever, I know. This is a young person’s job. Our senses of taste and
smell get worse as we get older. I’ve never met a chocolate taster over 55.

1 Put the phrases in the correct order to make sentences about the job of chocolate taster.
1 company to develop / A chocolate taster / is employed by a / new chocolate products
2 a good sense of / A chocolate taster / needs a good / sense of taste and / smell

2 Read the article. Match the sentence halves to make sentences about the article.
1 Sophie knows that she is very lucky A smell the chocolate is as important as being able to taste it.
2 She doesn’t have to B to be doing the work that she does.
3 She claims that women are better at C tasting than men.
4 Sophie says that being able to D creating new products in her kitchen.
5 In her job interview, Sophie had to E prove that she had a good sense of taste.
6 Sophie is happiest when she is F eat large quantities of chocolate in order to do her job.
7 Sophie recommends that we G change with the passing of time.
8 Sophie admits that flavours that are popular H eat chocolate more slowly in order to fully experience the taste.

3 Match the words and the definitions.

disappear bitter ingredients quality pleasure

1 the feeling of liking something and enjoying it

2 how good or bad something is
3 a taste that is strong and sometimes unpleasant, such as coffee
4 the foods that you find in a dish or in other food
5 to stop existing, or seem to stop existing

Skills Boost B1 READING 1 © Richmond 2014 Photocopiable