News

The monthly newsletter from the Tasting Club

Issue 1106

The Battle
of THE SEXES
The His & Her results are now
out – but whose chocolate
triumphed and who won the
battle of the sexes?
Details on page 7

CHOCOlate
All Day Long!
Discover fantastic recipes to take
you from morning to midnight
– get your sneak preview of our
new recipe book!
Turn to page 12

HE SAID
Cocoa flowers are small and delicate, so a steady hand
is most definitely needed!
WHAT?
It seems that Tasting Club

Steady Hand Required! members just love a caption

competition and we have another
cracker for you to ponder.
You can, of course, leave cocoa trees to their own Turn to page 15 to enter

devices when it comes to pollination. However, as

we found out, if you arm yourself with a pair of Food of the Gods...
tweezers and a steady hand, you can achieve
some pretty stunning results.
The hand pollination of cocoa flowers is one of the programmes
that we’re pushing on with this year. Why? Well, by devoting
a little time to helping cocoa trees along, farmers can greatly
increase the number of pods that trees produce and, therefore,
their income. By how much each tree’s yield improves is down
Now you can watch our brand new
to how much time a farmer spends pollinating his flowers.
TV advert. Search youtube.com: ‘The
021757

Chocolate Tasting Club TV AD 2011’

continued on page 8...
 W elcome to your latest edition of The Club News.
As you can see from this month’s headline, we’re
talking about one of our lower profile programmes in
Ghana, hand pollination of cocoa flowers. It may be
lower profile than say digging a borehole, but its results
Letter from the are quite stunning. I remember vividly seeing the hand

Editor
pollinated trees at the Pankese research centre in Ghana
– they were so heavy with pods they looked like they
might fall over! If a farmer can devote some time to hand
pollinating, he can substantially boost his income.

Also this month we take a look at the situation in Ivory

Coast, which has unfortunately been in the news a great
deal. It accounts for 40% of the world’s cocoa, so the
recent unrest has had a direct effect on cocoa supply.

If a farmer can devote some time to

hand pollinating, he can substantially
boost his income.
Elsewhere, we reveal the results of the His & Hers
Collection and you might well be surprised by what your
scores have told us. And we feature some holiday snaps
from members who have been to The Hotel in Saint Lucia
and, finally, there’s some news about a couple of exciting
developments inside your box on page 14.

Until next month, happy tasting!

Will you get your just desserts this

summer? Last chance to order your Simon Thirlwell
Summer Desserts on page 4! Club News Editor

Send your letters to The Chocolate

Tasting Club, Mint House, Royston
SG8 5HL, or simply email me on
simon@hotelchocolat.co.uk or via
our website: www.chocs.co.uk
We are waiting to hear from you!

Club News Editor: Simon Thirlwell;

Contributors: Simon Thirlwell,
Terry Waters.

© The Chocolate Tasting Club plc 2011

2
 Improve your chocolate knowledge
Milk
chocolate

I t wasn’t until the 1800s that a solid form of

chocolate was produced. It was, however, a
very dark and grainy affair, hardly recognisable
by today’s standards. Before that, cocoa had
been enjoyed only as a drink. So, when Daniel
Peter of Vevey, Switzerland, figured out how
to make milk chocolate in 1875, it was a giant
leap forward. Many had tried before, but all
had failed because the high water content of
milk meant it would not mix satisfactorily with
cocoa. Daniel’s breakthrough was to use the
condensed milk that had been invented several
years earlier by his friend. Despite his great
invention Daniel Peter’s name has not become
synonymous with chocolate. However, that of
his friend has – he was called Henri Nestlé.
 This month’s Prize Draw
Winners
last CALL for...

D134 Classic Selection

prize draw winner is Mrs Karen Welsh
from High Peak, Derbyshire who wins Summer really is on the way and
there’s only one way to guarantee that
a Signature Classic Selection. it will be an absolute sizzler – with our
Next month’s prize is a Milk Oblivion special edition Summer Desserts!
Sleekster Selection.
Last year the first ever Summer
K67 Dark Selection Desserts caused such a storm (in a
good way) that we knew there just
prize draw winner had to be an encore. And with 2 each
is Mrs A Monk from of 18 recipes, including 3 members’
West Drayton who choice chocolates, as well as an
wins a Signature exclusive ‘secret’ recipe booklet from
the Boucan Restaurant, this Summer
Dark Selection. Desserts is set to even hotter than
Next month’s prize is a Le the first!
Grand Crunch Dark Giant Slab.
Make sure you get yours!
S45 Elements There’s still time to brighten your
summer, but please hurry. Reserve
prize draw winner is Mr S yours at www.chocs.co.uk/SUMMER
Turner from Houghton or call 08444 72 70 70
Le Spring who wins
an Alcohol-Free
Signature Selection.
Next month’s prize is a
Rocky Road Giant Slab.

Don’t forget – score by post or online at www.chocs.co.uk

4 and you’ll be automatically entered into the prize draw
 Tasting Club Members in Saint Lucia
P rize Draw Winners Val Spowart and her
husband John won seven nights at The
Hotel and have recently returned. She wrote,
“Just a note to say thank you for such a
wonderful holiday, we were both really sad
to leave and come home. Everything was first
class, the staff were excellent and couldn’t do
enough for us. The accommodation was
superb – we loved the open-air shower, pity
the weather here is so inconsistent otherwise
we would be making plans to have one
installed!”
To find out more about The Hotel, for availability and bookings – please see
www.thehotelchocolat.com or call reservations on 0844 544 1272
Also this month, we received a note from
Margaret Dyer who dropped in to Rabot Estate
while passing, “On a recent cruise to the
Caribbean we had a day in Saint Lucia and
were able to visit Hotel Chocolat. Janeka
welcomed us to the Boucan Restaurant with
a chocolate shot and we then enjoyed lunch
right at the foot of the Pitons. What a lovely
location. Needless to say, the food and
ambience were beautiful and we only wish
we could have spent more time there. I am
attaching a photo of my husband, Peter,
relaxing in the restaurant before lunch.”
We’re hoping that this could well become a
regular feature as more and more Tasting Club
members take themselves off to explore The
Hotel Chocolat in Saint Lucia. So, if you’ve been
or you are planning a trip, then do drop us a
line and don’t forget to send us a photo when
you come back!
Left:Val enjoying breakfast in the shadow of the
Petit Piton and (right) the rainforest shower in
Val’s Cocoa Cottage that so impressed. Above:
Margaret Dyer took this shot of her husband
Peter just before lunch at The Boucan Restaurant
 Ivory Coast in West Africa is
the world’s largest cocoa grower
– accounting for 40% of
the world’s supply

Mali
Burkina AFRICA
Faso
Guinea

Côte D’Ivoire
Ghana
Liberia

ATLANTIC OCEAN

The Cost Of COCOA

The history of Côte D’Ivoire, or Ivory Coast, has been intimately entwined
with cocoa for hundreds of years. And with the recent surge in cocoa prices
due to unrest in the country, it’s clear that the fate of cocoa is intimately
entwined with Ivory Coast.
You have to go back to the latter half of the cocoa prices have hit 30-year highs due to
19th century to find the origins of Ivory Coast’s recent unrest – as Mr Gbagbo, beaten in
focus on growing commodity crops. The presidential elections, refused to step down.
French, as the colonial power, wanted to turn Mr Outtara, the UN recognised election winner,
the country into a commodity exporter and imposed a ban on cocoa exports, to deprive
so set about creating coffee, palm, banana and Mr Gbagbo of funds. Such is the importance of
cocoa plantations. They were clearly successful Ivory Coast to cocoa that this promptly fuelled
and Ivory Coast boomed. In the 1980s it concern of worldwide cocoa shortages.
became the world’s leading cocoa grower –
stealing the crown from neighbouring Ghana. It has been estimated that there are over
However, soon after that the world was hit by 600,000 cocoa farms in Ivory Coast, almost
recession and commodity prices plummeted. all, as in Ghana, are smallholdings employing
And with economic unrest came civil unrest around 3.6 million people. At the time of writing
and a military coup in 1999, followed by a the political situation appears to have been
failed coup in 2002. resolved, so we can only hope that the country
returns to long-term stability and prosperity.
Today, Ivory Coast accounts for 40% of the
world’s cocoa and so it is no surprise that

6
His & Hers Results – The Battle is Over!
The results from our His & Hers Collection have
really set the cat amongst the pigeons, making a His Top 5
mockery of the old-fashioned gender stereotypes 1.  Blueberry Dream (F)
on the way. 2. Eton Mess (F)
3. 40% milk chocolate
buttons (F/M)
4. Heart of Kirsch (M)
5.  Dizzy (F)

His & Hers

The His and Hers Collection
No.1
That’s because the dramatic news is that our results show a coming
together of tastes and preferences. In other words, the ‘His’ and
the ‘Hers’ scores were really quite similar. Just to remind you, half
of the chocolates had so called ‘feminine’ flavours and the other
half had what might be called more ‘masculine’ tastes. The key,
however, was that there were two each of every chocolate, so ‘she’
tasted ‘his’ chocolates and vice versa and both parties scored all of
the chocolates.
Blueberry Dream
The bottom half of the results is identical and, as you can see, both
top fives share three chocolates, with two feminine recipes taking
the top spots. On the ‘His’ side there are a total of three feminine Hers Top 5
recipes, one male and one that is on the border between the two. 1.  Blueberry Dream (F)
On the ‘hers’ side there are two female recipes, two male and one 2. Eton Mess (F)
that is on the border. Female scorers are more generous than their 3. Lemon Truffle (M)
male counterparts.
4. Heart of Kirsch (M)
5.  Sugar Cane Praline (M/F)
So, given the similarity of these results, it appears the battle of the
sexes is over – for now at least!
7
8
 continued from page 1

Steady Hand Required!

“ Mother nature, of course, can take care of things but typically

only 1 to 3% of flowers on a tree go on to produce a pod.

We first came across the practice of hand
pollination when we visited the Pankese
Cocoa Station back in 2006. Run by the Cocoa
Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG), Pankese
is a beautifully kept research centre where
they investigate cocoa’s pests and diseases, as
well as developing best practices, which they
then pass on to farmers. They are also heavily
involved in crossbreeding to further improve
the strain of cocoa that is grown in Ghana. The
pollination of cocoa flowers, therefore, is at the
centre of all the work carried out at Pankese
and so it is a vitally important activity.
While we were there we witnessed the
pollinators at work and learned that the
optimum time for this work is between 7 and
11am. The all-lady team had picked flowers
from trees in a different area, with which
they proceeded to fertilise the tiny flowers on
the trees in this area, using their tweezers to
transfer the pollen.
There’s no doubt that it is painstaking work
but after only 6 months the results of the
handiwork grow into mature cocoa pods – at
Pankese there were hand pollinated trees that
were almost straining under the weight of
pods! So it is clearly a worthwhile practice.
And that is why David, our farm manager in
Osuben, has been taught the skill and will
teach it to as many farmers as he can. His first
step was to teach his own team how to hand
pollinate and when we were last visiting the
”
farmers’ centre in Osuben, David couldn’t wait
to get his white coat on and to show us how it’s
done. He also couldn’t wait for us to meet his
team of pollinators that we immediately named
‘David’s Angels’ – because, as in Pankese, David
has chosen an all-girl team.
Mother nature, of course, can take care of
things but typically only 1 to 3% of flowers
on a tree go on to produce a pod. Flowers are
usually pollinated by tiny flies, as the Spanish
eventually found out when they first set about
trying to improve the way cocoa was grown in
the 16th century. They considered the growing
conditions in South and Central America to
be pretty messy by their standards and so
when they started farming cocoa they created
pristine groves.
However, try as they might, they just could
not get the cocoa trees to produce many pods
in the spotless conditions they had created.
Eventually they realised that the flowers were
not being pollinated. It turned out that in
clearing away the clutter beneath the cocoa
trees, they had also cleared out the tiny flies
that pollinate the flowers.
If only the Spanish had had tweezers then.
We’ll let you know how our hand pollination
programme gets on in a future issue!

Clockwise from top left – a pod-laden hand pollinated tree; Simon & Essie taking notes; David’s Angels
at work; pollinating a flower with tweezers; David concentrating hard; more hand pollinated pods;
the tiny cocoa flower; and David showing us how it’s done.
9
 scores

Classic
1.
Selection – D134
Café Caramel Sensation by V Sellars & M Meier 8.40 (30% scored it 10/10)
2. Gianduja Fix by G Pereira 8.39 (26% scored it 10/10)
3. Baileys Buttercream by JC Vandenberghe 8.39 (31% scored it 10/10)
4. Italian Job by E Desmet 8.29 (29% scored it 10/10)
5. O & M Smoothie by O Coppeneur 8.27 (24% scored it 10/10)
6. Pomegranate Schnapps by O Coppeneur 8.26 (33% scored it 10/10)
7. Pair of Pralines by E Desmet 8.22 (23% scored it 10/10)
8. Bison Grass Truffle by K Kalenko 8.21 (24% scored it 10/10)
9. Ginger Cheesecake by E Desmet 8.19 (32% scored it 10/10)
10. Rob Roy by R Macfadyen 8.16 (28% scored it 10/10)
11. Andoa 39% Milk Tasting Batons 8.15 (20% scored it 10/10)
12. Almond Crunch by G Pereira 8.04 (21% scored it 10/10)
13. Orizaba 39% Milk Tasting Batons 8.02 (18% scored it 10/10)
14. Delia’s Delight by R Macfadyen 8.01 (22% scored it 10/10) Café Caramel
15. Dark Heart by O Nicod 7.83 (14% scored 10/10) Sensation

Dark
1.
Selection – K67
Italian Job by E Desmet 8.58 (39% scored it 10/10)
2. Café Caramel Sensation by V Sellars & M Meier 8.50 (32% scored it 10/10)
3. Bison Grass Truffle by K Kalenko 8.49 (26% scored it 10/10)
4. Caribbean Blend Dark Tasting Batons 8.40 (25% scored it 10/10)
5. Baileys Buttercream by JC Vandenberghe 8.31 (26% scored it 10/10)
6. Ginger Cheesecake by E Desmet 8.30 (41% scored it 10/10)
7. Rob Roy by R Macfadyen 8.24 (33% scored it 10/10)
8. Pomegranate Schnapps by O Coppeneur 8.22 (32% scored it 10/10)
9. Delia’s Delight by R Macfadyen 8.14 (22% scored it 10/10)
10. Gianduja Fix by G Pereira 8.09 (22% scored it 10/10)
11. Pair of Pralines by E Desmet 8.07 (20% scored it 10/10)
12. Almond Crunch by G Pereira 8.05 (16% scored it 10/10) Italian Job
13. O & M Smoothie by O Coppeneur 8.03 (22% scored it 10/10)
14. Dark Heart by O Nicod 7.98 (18% scored 10/10)

Elements
1.
– S45
Pair of Pralines by E Desmet 8.39 (23% scored it 10/10)
2. O & M Smoothie by O Coppeneur 8.34 (24% scored it 10/10)
3. Orizaba 39% Milk Tasting Batons 8.31 (18% scored it 10/10)
4. Delia’s Delight by R Macfadyen 8.26 (22% scored it 10/10)
5. Almond Crunch by G Pereira 8.19 (21% scored it 10/10)
6. Raspberry Riot by R Macfadyen 8.11 (31% scored it 10/10)
7. Andoa 39% Milk Chocolate 8.01 (20% scored it 10/10)
8. Dark Heart by O Nicod 7.88 (14% scored 10/10)
9. Gianduja Fix by G Pereira 7.48 (26% scored it 10/10)
10. Caribbean Blend Dark Tasting Batons 6.73 (29% scored it 10/10) Pair of Pralines

10
feedback

Have Your Say!

Bouquet  Café Caramel Sensation – Classic
“The best competition winner by far in my opinion! His & Hers
What a lovely idea, the coffee liqueur flavours blend so
well with the smooth caramel.” Comments
Kate, Liverpool
Eton Mess
Bouquet Italian Job – Classic “Which girl doesn’t love this look
“Amaretto is always a winner for me – just a pity I didn’t and taste of this? So lovely!”
realise there was such a choc in the box until after my Vicky, Guildford
husband had eaten one!”
Penny Jann, Godalming General
“This was an interesting selection.
Brickbat  Ouzo Truffle – Classic I much preferred the ‘Hers’
“I’m afraid ouzo has absolutely no business being in a chocolates and my partner
chocolate. This was a criminal piece of confectionery!” preferred the ‘His’ chocolates.
I was just disappointed I didn’t
Helen Clegg, Glasgow
enjoy all of them!”
Anon, online
Bouquet Delia’s Delight – Classic
“There was something about the crunch-then-melt of Caramel Sweethearts
the meringue that balanced with the smooth, dark “Love the shape, love the
praline. Perfection.” chocolate. Cupid just shot his
Michelle Grose, Northampton arrow into my heart over this one.”
Christine Holder, London
Brickbat  Pistachio Praline – Dark
“We didn’t find the pistachio complemented the praline or General
the chocolate well... Rather disappointingly non descript!” “Bring on next year.”
Adam & Shirin, Leicester Darren Carne, Bury St Edmunds

Bouquet Rob Roy – Dark Liquid Caramel

“A real winner. Very classy and not too overpowering for “Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm,
a whisky. The only thing missing was Liam Neeson!” totally mmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Jane Wright, London Do you sell these (in large bags)?”
M Quy, Cambridge
Brickbat  Pair of Pralines – Elements Florentine Dream
“Looks good. But I still maintain that a praline is a praline...”
“I absolutely love florentines and
Sussanah Bramley, Upton-Upon-Severn this was perfect. Creamy praline,
chewy florentine and the right
Bouquet O & M Smoothie – Elements darkness of chocolate. Heaven.”
“WOW! The taste is something else. Fresh, tangy, Lorraine Deane, Barking
absolutely divine.”
Alexi Tallman, Exeter

11
 preview

Chocolate
ALL DAY LONG!
You know as well as we do that the
best time to enjoy chocolate is any
time! Imagine then a definitive guide
that will steer you through all of the
best chocolate recipes – taking you
from dawn to dusk and beyond.

The even better news is you won’t have

to imagine for much longer! Some of the
world’s most respected chefs and food
writers have given us their best chocolate
recipes and their personal favourites for us
to put together to create an updated and
greatly extended new edition of our best
selling 101 Best Loved Chocolate Recipes.
You’ll also find some of our favourite Cacao
Cuisine recipes – never-seen-before
exclusives that have been specially created
just for the Boucan Restaurant on Saint Lucia.

Entitled Morning to Midnight, it will do just

that – with exciting recipes, both sweet and
savoury, to take you from breakfast and
elevenses and on to lunch, then cocktails,
dinner and off to bed. Rest assured you’ll be
the first to know when it is hot off the press
and available to order – watch this space!

12

WHAT ON EARTH IS
Cocoa Tea?
C ocoa tea is an invigorating drink made
with pure cocoa that is more like coffee
than hot chocolate. At its heart is the cocoa
stick – a cigar-shaped roll about six inches
long made with roasted cocoa beans simply
ground into a paste and then rolled. Cocoa
tea’s roots go back to the beginning of man’s
relationship with cocoa – because it is very
similar to how the Olmec, Mayan and Aztec
civilisations first enjoyed cocoa over three
thousand years ago. So it doesn’t get much
more authentic than this!
If you’d like to try it for yourself, you can find
Pure Cocoa Shavings at Hotel Chocolat (pre
grated so you can use immediately) and this is
Angus’s own recipe:
Ingredients
• 1/2 a mug of water
• 1/2 a mug of skimmed milk
• 2 x soup spoons of cocoa bean shavings
Method
• Boil the water in a
saucepan or milk pan,
then add the cocoa bean
shavings and whisk.
• After about 30 seconds
of fast boiling, remove
from the heat and add
the milk.
•  Whisk further then serve.
updates
Thinking inside
The Box
Exciting news for Classic and Dark
tasters! Starting with next month’s
selection we’ll be featuring three new
chocolate personalities in Classic and
Dark monthly selections. Who are
these new faces? Well, they’ll change
every month, but they will always fall
into these three categories:
Blast from the Past – will feature fantastic
recipes from the past that simply demand an
encore, so members can either discover them
for the first time or reminisce with an old
friend.
Off the Wall – these will be the recipes that
have been specially created to challenge and
provoke. So they’ll push a few boundaries
with, for example, unusual flavours and
combinations, they might have a daring
alcohol content or feature something we’ve
never tried before.
Founder’s Favourite – this one speaks for
itself, or rather Club Founder, Angus Thirlwell,
speaks for it because this is the chocolate
that Angus has chosen as his favourite. The
question is, will you share Angus’s taste?
There’s only one way to find out!
Off the Wall – earl grey
is full of interesting and
delicate flavours but will
it be your cup of tea?
Earl Grey Tea
Founder’s Favourite –
ever since Angus discovered
lychee martinis on a trip to
New York he’s been besotted
with them (this recipe is non
-alcoholic though). Lychee Dream
13
 and finally

Did you know? tonnes

square feet
42,000
1,400
You’ll probably already know
that we make our own chocolate
at our Hadley Park facility in 110,000,000
Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, individual chocs

86
which covers 42,000 square feet.

And if you live within striking
distance, you might even have
visited the Factory Shop to pick
up a few bargains.
What you won’t know, however, is that in
2010 we used in excess of 1,400 tonnes of
chocolate, covering a total of 86 different
types and grades – including milk, dark and
white, rare single estate and single origin
types/grades
chocolates, as well as our very own house
blends. In 2011, we estimate that we will
make in excess of 110 million individual
chocolates for The Chocolate Tasting Club as
well as for Hotel Chocolat.

PLEASE FORGIVE
Our Mismatches
As we revealed last month, there
are new box designs on the way.
And not just for our special
editions, but for our monthly
M EN U
boxes too and that includes the A unique
selection
most inventive
the world’s
of
chocolat
es

monthly menu.

O ur brand new look will enable our

boxes to move with the times and there
will also be clear design elements that tie all
the boxes together – whether they’re special
collections or monthly selections.
Over the next few months you’ll see a
gradual change over from old style to new
and you might even receive a box that
combines the two – a new look menu with
an old design lid for example. We do hope
you’ll forgive these mismatches – they’re
entirely due to the fact that we’d like to use
up the existing stock of boxes before we start
with the new. We hope you’ll agree that this
is much better than throwing away perfectly
good boxes – waste not want not!

14
competition

Caption COMPETITION
This month’s caption competition is a little different – we already have
a caption! So, we’d like you to take a long hard look at the image below
and let us know what you think our caption is. Hint – take a look at
each end and let us know, on balance, what you think.

The winner will be whoever Your caption:

correctly guesses or gets
closest to the caption that
we’ve already come up with
– and they’ll win a gorgeous
Hotel Chocolat Everything
Selection.

Please send us your entries
by 20th June –

simon@hotelchocolat.co.uk
or Caption Competition,
The Chocolate Tasting Club,
Royston SG8 5HL


15
 Every No.1 Dad has his day!
Father’s Day – 19th June
Difficult to buy for? Not any more – we’re full of gift ideas!

www.hotelchocolat.co.uk

Write to us at: The Chocolate Tasting Club, Mint House, Royston, SG8 5HL Email: simon@hotelchocolat.co.uk or via our website: www.chocs.co.uk
Club News: Editor: Simon Thirlwell; Contributors: Simon Thirlwell, Terry Waters.
© The Chocolate Tasting Club plc 2011