On Roast

I love Pralus's bars. I can spot his chocolate from a mile away by just the color and thickness of his 75% bars. Smelling his bars generally yields a rather faint aroma compared to many others (Chuao excepted). There is no vanilla; there is no fermenty funk as with Domori. But when you bite into his Madagascar (or Djakarta, or whichever), you are greeted with intense flavor.

Francois Pralus walks a fine line. I haven't come across another chocolatier that can roast beans so dark as Francois - or at least would ever dare to. Between the roast and the high cocoa content, Pralus can approach savory more than sweet.

When the high roast levels are paired with chocolate from places that have rather volcanic soil, the results are especially smoky. I made some hot cocoa with Djakarta that, upon first taste, tasted smoky. After having some other cocoas that were a bit sweeter (this was at a society meeting highlighting hot cocoa, of course), my Pralus cocoa tasted like licking a really delicious used fire pit.

Valrhona hides its characteristically French roast levels with a fair amount of vanilla (and lower percentages and extra cocoa butter). I enjoy Valrhona, but in a different way. The flavors are generally less complex, and the extra sugar and cocoa butter and vanilla yields a much sweeter experience. Try the Tainori, and the relevance will crystallize for you.

Italians, represented by Domori and Amedei, tend to lean more toward lighter roast. Their chocolates often have a "brightness" to them that the French rarely do. Certainly, they come across as a lot less "roasty."

Once upon a time, I was able to try test kitchen batches of Amano's then forthcoming Guayas - made with the Ecuadorian Nacional bean. I tried three roast levels, and I had a sort of Goldilocks experience. The too-light roast tasted underdeveloped and flat. The too-dark roast tasted like better-than-average charcoal (an exaggeration, I promise), but the just-right roast exploded with flavor. The green banana popped to the forefront, despite the fact that the beans were coarsely ground and roughly mixed with the sugar. It was altogether quite enlightening.

Roast is a key component in my personal tasting experience. Aside from vanilla and snap, roast is among the first factors that exposes the maker. Cook with French chocolate, and even if you never understood the roast level before, you will get it. In pastries or pudding, to my palate, higher roasts bring the chocolate out in the "mix." In audio, it is the equivalent to an instrument "cutting through the mix."

It is not a matter of which roast is the best, but one more disparity in which we can revel and explore.