I took a class at Theo Chocolate on Wednesday, April 15. They have a proper chemist named Andy McShea as their head chocolatier and he gave a lecture on the fermentation of cacao beans. The way he explained it was that there were three processes – sugar to ethanol via yeast, ethanol to lactic acid via bacteria, and lactic to acetic acid via other bacteria – that were significant in determining the taste of chocolate. I was unaware that this is always an uncontrolled process. He said that all of Theo’s beans are fermented in the region that produces them, and they foster the fermentation by heaping the beans outdoors in wet messy piles that they stir without special precision in introducing the cultures, managing the temperature or humidity, or any of the other controls that modern science puts on bread, cheese, wine, or beer fermentation.
He also said that Theobroma cacao, the chocolate-bean producing plant, is not well-bred in the since that the various sub-species are not named or differentiated in any formal manner. I know that current books on chocolate say that there are three varieties of beans (Criollo, Forastero, and Trinitario) and he was showing a genetic analysis that demonstrated the existence of at least 10 varieties and speculated dozens more. The classes were great and they also provided us with various chocolates at different stages of processing. The chocolate liquors, which is what they called 100% solid chocolate, sound foul to describe but were somehow appealing to me despite variously tasting of burnt wood, rancid butter, or salty dirt depending on their origins. I ate them till I became ill. They also had conched and unconched chocolate, but with the strong taste of the liquors in my mouth, I could not appreciate the differences.
I wish I could go to all the classes but as they charge $30 a session, it just is not possible. This is the first time I have gotten involved with the chocolate company since dear Jeff Fairhall died. I miss spending time with him.
The University is running an excellent eight-week lecture series on coffee right now and there is significant overlap in the social issues for those two third-world manufactured luxury goods marketed to rich nations. I definitely am going to all of those free classes, and feel so fortunate to be in a city that can support the necessary number of interested people to organize these kinds of events. I really doubt that these kinds of talks could happen with such large audiences in many other places in America.