8 chocolate bars with a range of cocoa percentages from milk to dark. Choose for flavour variety too: from sea salt to rye bread, caramel, cacao nibs, select for variety.
• Pencils and scraps of paper for your trainee connoisseurs
• Glasses of water to cleanse the palate between tastes
• Small side plates
• A Post-it note pad
• A chopping board
• Knife
Note: If you’d like a curated selection check out the collections created by Cocoa Runners HERE.
Set up:
Remove the chocolate from its packagin but don’t discard the outer wrapper.
Assign a number to each bar, writing it on the outer wrapper. Keep the packaging hidden from your guests.
Lay each bar out on the chopping board with post it note with the number that corresponds with the number you assigned to the bar’s wrapper
Chop the bar up into mouth-sized portions.
You’re ready to start.
How to taste chocolate like a professional:
1. Start with the break: Before tasting, hold your piece close to your ear and snap it in two. A crisp, decisive break is a sign the chocolate has been well handled during production. A dull or crumbly break can suggest the opposite.
2. Take in the aroma: Bring the chocolate up to your nose and pause. What comes through first? Something roasted? Nutty? Slightly fruity? Perhaps even a hint of spice or earthiness? There’s no right answer here—what matters is noticing and being able to describe it, however loosely. Ask your guests to jot down their reflections too.
3. Reset your senses: Lightly pinch your nose and breathe through your mouth for around half a minute. It may feel slightly odd, but it helps separate taste from smell—something we rarely do when eating normally.
4. Focus purely on taste and texture: Keeping your fingers over your nose so the nostrils stay closed, place the chocolate on your tongue.
Pay attention to how it behaves before you think about flavour:
- Does it melt cleanly or linger
- Is it silky, chalky, or slightly granular?
Only then consider what you can actually taste without the influence of aroma.
5. Let the full flavour unfold: Now release your nose and breathe normally with the chocolate still on your tongue, before allowing yourself to taste.
This is the moment where everything shifts. Flavours tend to open up quickly, often becoming more layered and expressive. You may notice notes you didn’t detect before—sometimes quite suddenly.
6. Give it time: Let the chocolate melt slowly rather than chewing straight away.
Well-made chocolate evolves as it warms, moving through different flavour notes rather than delivering everything at once.
7. Around the table
Once everyone has finished, open up the conversation:
- Did people notice similar flavours, or completely different ones?
- Were there any surprises in texture or intensity?
- Which chocolate stood out—and what made it memorable?
- Then move on to the next bar and repeat.
8. Reveal and Reflect
When the tasting is complete bring the wrappers back into the room.
- What do the makers say about origin and tasting notes?
- What cocoa percentage are they working with?
- Did your preferences align with what you assumed you’d like?
A final tip: I like to include a few supermarket favourites to the tasting table too. It’s amazing how different these taste when you pay attention in the same way. I found myself slightly put off by the sweetness and artificial flavour.
And although I’ll never say no to a Cadbury’s Creme Egg, eating and enjoying chocolate consciously has changed my relationship with it too. It’s gone from a sugar fix inhaled in seconds in periods of stress, to a considered purchase where the ethics, the endeavour, the flavour and the craft are front and centre.
Note: MPOWDER has no affiliation with Cocoa Runners. We champion their work because they not only keep craft chocolate makers afloat, they celebrate a better, fairer way to make the world’s favourite sweet treat. To learn more about their subscription services, their online and in-person tasting workshops and more, head to their website HERE.
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