People assume a chocolate tasting requires expertise. It requires chocolate, a knife, and friends who show up on time. Here is how I would run one at your house.
How do you host a chocolate tasting at home? Pick five or six genuinely different bars, cut small pieces, and taste them in order from lightest to darkest, with water (or coffee, or wine) in between. Let everyone say what they taste without correcting anyone. That is the entire method. The rest is detail, and the details are the fun part.
Which chocolates should you choose?
Range beats quantity. You want contrast: a milk chocolate, a bittersweet, something with nuts or texture, something with fruit, and one wild card. Our 10 Bar Chocolate Collection was curated for exactly this, a chef-picked sweep of our Premium, Salty-Sweet, Nuts and Ruby chocolate bars in one box. For a smaller table, the Ruby Garnet collection makes a great wild card course, and the Nostalgia Bar Collection (our take on the candy bars you grew up with) is the crowd-pleaser finale.
How do you actually taste?
Small pieces, and slow down. Look at the piece first (good chocolate has a sheen), snap it next to your ear (a clean snap means good temper and fresh chocolate), then let it start to melt on your tongue before you chew. The flavors arrive in stages: first impression, the middle, and the finish after you swallow. The finish is where fresh chocolate separates itself: it keeps going.
What order, and what in between?
Light to dark, always. Milk chocolates first, bittersweet last, textured bars in the middle. Sparkling water resets the palate best. A bite of plain bread works too (an old trick from professional tastings). Save any wine for after the official rounds, when opinions get more confident and less accurate.
Do not overthink it. The best tasting note I ever heard came from a nine-year-old who said a bar tasted like a campfire in a good way. She was right, and she beat a room full of adults to it. Set out the bars, pour the water, and let people discover what they actually like.
Enjoy,
Chuck Siegel
Founder, Charles Chocolates
Chuck Siegel
Founder, Charles Chocolates
Chuck has been making chocolate in San Francisco since 1987. Self-taught, he founded his first chocolate company, Attivo Confections, sold it in 1995, and started Charles Chocolates in 2004 on one uncommon idea: chocolate should be treated like fresh food.
Everything is made in small batches with all-natural ingredients (real cream, real butter, real fruit) and no shortcuts. His work has earned a Good Food Award, Sunset Magazine's Best of the West, and recognition from San Francisco Magazine, and has been covered by KQED and the San Francisco food press.
