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Now you can watch our brand new TV advert. Search youtube.com: ‘The Chocolate Tasting Club TV AD 2011’

NewsThe monthly newsletter from the Tasting Club

Issue 1106

Details on page 7

The His & Her results are now out – but whose chocolate triumphed and who won the battle of the sexes?

The BATTle of The SeXeS

Turn to page 12

Discover fantastic recipes to take you from morning to midnight – get your sneak preview of our new recipe book!

CHOCOlate All Day Long!

Turn to page 15 to enter

It seems that Tasting Club members just love a caption competition and we have another cracker for you to ponder.

HE SAID WHAT?

Food oF The Gods...

You can, of course, leave cocoa trees to their own devices when it comes to pollination. However, as we found out, if you arm yourself with a pair of 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 to how much time a farmer spends pollinating his flowers.

Cocoa flowers are small and delicate, so a steady hand is most definitely needed!

Steady Hand Required!

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editOrLetter from the

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

Will you get your just desserts this summer? Last chance to order your

Summer Desserts on page 4!

welcome 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 are quite stunning. I remember vividly seeing the hand 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!

Simon Thirlwell Club News Editor

Milk CHOCOlate

Improve your chocolate knowledge

it 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.

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dON’t fOrget – score by post or online at www.chocs.co.uk and you’ll be automatically entered into the prize draw

winnersThis month’s Prize Draw

S45 elements prize draw winner is Mr S Turner from Houghton Le Spring who wins an Alcohol-Free Signature Selection.

Next month’s prize is a Rocky Road Giant Slab.

K67 Dark Selection prize draw winner is Mrs A Monk from West Drayton who

wins a Signature Dark Selection.

Next month’s prize is a Le Grand Crunch Dark Giant Slab.

lASt CAll for...

D134 Classic Selection prize draw winner is Mrs Karen Welsh from High Peak, Derbyshire who wins a Signature Classic Selection.

Next month’s prize is a Milk Oblivion Sleekster Selection.

Summer really is on the way and there’s only one way to guarantee that it will be an absolute sizzler – with our special edition Summer Desserts!

Last year the first ever Summer Desserts caused such a storm (in a good way) that we knew there just had to be an encore. And with 2 each of 18 recipes, including 3 members’ choice chocolates, as well as an exclusive ‘secret’ recipe booklet from the Boucan Restaurant, this Summer Desserts is set to even hotter than the first!

Make sure you get yours!There’s still time to brighten your summer, but please hurry. Reserve yours at www.chocs.co.uk/sUMMeR or call 08444 72 70 70

Prize 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!”

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.”

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

Tasting Club Members in Saint Lucia

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!

To find out more about The hotel, for availability and bookings – please see www.thehotelchocolat.com or call reservations on 0844 544 1272

Côte D’Ivoire

Guinea

Mali

Ghana

Liberia

BurkinaFaso

ATLANTIC OCEAN

AFRICA

6

The Cost Of COCOA

Ivory Coast in West Africa is the world’s largest cocoa grower

– accounting for 40% of the world’s supply

You have to go back to the latter half of the 19th century to find the origins of Ivory Coast’s focus on growing commodity crops. The French, as the colonial power, wanted to turn the country into a commodity exporter and so set about creating coffee, palm, banana and cocoa plantations. They were clearly successful and Ivory Coast boomed. In the 1980s it became the world’s leading cocoa grower – stealing the crown from neighbouring Ghana. However, soon after that the world was hit by recession and commodity prices plummeted. And with economic unrest came civil unrest and a military coup in 1999, followed by a failed coup in 2002.

Today, Ivory Coast accounts for 40% of the world’s cocoa and so it is no surprise that

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.

cocoa prices have hit 30-year highs due to recent unrest – as Mr Gbagbo, beaten in presidential elections, refused to step down. Mr Outtara, the UN recognised election winner, imposed a ban on cocoa exports, to deprive Mr Gbagbo of funds. Such is the importance of Ivory Coast to cocoa that this promptly fuelled concern of worldwide cocoa shortages.

It has been estimated that there are over 600,000 cocoa farms in Ivory Coast, almost all, as in Ghana, are smallholdings employing around 3.6 million people. At the time of writing the political situation appears to have been resolved, so we can only hope that the country returns to long-term stability and prosperity.

Côte D’Ivoire

Guinea

Mali

Ghana

Liberia

BurkinaFaso

ATLANTIC OCEAN

AFRICA

7

his & heRs ResULTs – The Battle is Over!

Blueberry Dream

The results from our His & Hers Collection have really set the cat amongst the pigeons, making a mockery of the old-fashioned gender stereotypes on the way.

His & Hers No.1

hers Top 51. Blueberry Dream (f)2. eton Mess (f)3. lemon Truffle (M)4. heart of Kirsch (M)5. Sugar Cane Praline (M/f)

his Top 51. Blueberry Dream (f)2. eton Mess (f)3. 40% milk chocolate

buttons (f/M)4. heart of Kirsch (M)5. Dizzy (f)

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.

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 recipes, one male and one that is on the border between the two. on the ‘hers’ side there are two female recipes, two male and one that is on the border. female scorers are more generous than their male counterparts.

So, given the similarity of these results, it appears the battle of the sexes is over – for now at least!

The His and Hers Collection

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continued from page 1

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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!

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.“ ”

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.

Steady Hand Required!

scores

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Classic SElECtIon – D134 1. 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)15. Dark Heart by o Nicod 7.83 (14% scored 10/10)

Dark SElECtIon – K671. 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)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 – S451. 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)

Café Caramel Sensation

Italian Job

Pair of Pralines

feedback

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have Your Say!Bouquet Café Caramel Sensation – Classic“The best competition winner by far in my opinion! What a lovely idea, the coffee liqueur flavours blend so well with the smooth caramel.”

Kate, liverpool

Brickbat Ouzo Truffle – Classic“I’m afraid ouzo has absolutely no business being in a chocolate. This was a criminal piece of confectionery!”

helen Clegg, Glasgow

Brickbat Pistachio Praline – Dark“We didn’t find the pistachio complemented the praline or the chocolate well... Rather disappointingly non descript!”

Adam & Shirin, leicester

Brickbat Pair of Pralines – Elements“Looks good. But I still maintain that a praline is a praline...”

Sussanah Bramley, Upton-Upon-Severn

Bouquet Italian Job – Classic“Amaretto is always a winner for me – just a pity I didn’t realise there was such a choc in the box until after my husband had eaten one!”

Penny Jann, Godalming

Bouquet Delia’s Delight – Classic“There was something about the crunch-then-melt of the meringue that balanced with the smooth, dark praline. Perfection.”

Michelle Grose, Northampton

Bouquet Rob Roy – Dark“A real winner. Very classy and not too overpowering for a whisky. The only thing missing was Liam Neeson!”

Jane Wright, london

Bouquet O & M Smoothie – Elements“WOW! The taste is something else. Fresh, tangy, absolutely divine.”

Alexi Tallman, exeter

His & Hers CommentsEton Mess “Which girl doesn’t love this look and taste of this? so lovely!”Vicky, Guildford

General“This was an interesting selection. i much preferred the ‘hers’ chocolates and my partner preferred the ‘his’ chocolates. i was just disappointed i didn’t enjoy all of them!”Anon, online

Caramel Sweethearts“Love the shape, love the chocolate. Cupid just shot his arrow into my heart over this one.”Christine Holder, London

General“Bring on next year.”Darren Carne, Bury St Edmunds

liquid Caramel “Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, totally mmmmmmmmmmmmm. do you sell these (in large bags)?”M Quy, Cambridge

florentine Dream“i absolutely love florentines and this was perfect. Creamy praline, chewy florentine and the right darkness of chocolate. heaven.”Lorraine Deane, Barking

preview

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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!

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.

all daY lONg!CHOCOlate

updates

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WhAT oN eARTh IS Cocoa Tea?

Cocoa 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.

ThINKING INSIDe

The Boxexciting 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?

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

Earl Grey Tea

and finally

110,000,000individual chocs

42,000square feet 86 ty

pes/

grad

es

1,400tonnes

MENUA unique selection of

the world’s most inventive chocolates

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You’ll probably already know that we make our own chocolate at our Hadley Park facility in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, 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

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.

Did you know?

Our 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!

PleASe foRGIVe Our MismatchesAs we revealed last month, there are new box designs on the way. And not just for our special editions, but for our monthly boxes too and that includes the monthly menu.

competition

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Caption CoMPeTITIoNThis 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 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

Your caption:

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

Every No.1 DaD has his day! Father’s Day – 19th June

www.hotelchocolat.co.uk

Difficult to buy for? not any more – we’re full of gift ideas!