Just this. That’s what enters my head every morning when I begin my chocolate ritual — eating two squares of 85-percent Green and Black Organic chocolate and sipping Chai tea, to which I add a tablespoon of no-sugar raw cacao powder. As soon as I lift the square of chocolate to my mouth, I catch it’s aroma and think — just this.
Good chocolate has a way of bringing us to the present moment, of insisting on our full attention. To run through grocery lists, or think about emails is to miss the sensual experience of it. The square hits my tongue and feels brittle at first. Seconds pass and the chocolate begins to soften, pouring like a slow river across the tongue and into the mouth’s crevices. The texture can move from grainy to velvet smooth. There might be a taste of spice, flowers, and something indescribable. What is that indescribable something?
Science would like us to believe humans love chocolate simply because it tastes good and especially because its chemical structure triggers the brain’s reward system, etc. I don’t buy that simplistic explanation any more than I believed scientists who insisted for decades that dogs don’t have emotions. (Brain scans proved they were wrong.) Still, I can’t explain why many of us love chocolate, any more than I can tell you why you resonate to certain kinds of music more than others. I suspect it is far more complex than we know. I can tell you’ve I’ve discovered an excellent guide for experiencing chocolate to the fullest. It’s from the French Vosges Chocolate Company.
HOW TO TASTE:
1. Be present.
2. Look at the chocolate.
3. Feel it with your fingers.
4. Inhale its aroma.
5. Bite into it with your teeth and hear the snap.
6. Let it sit on your tongue for a moment, softly drawing in air.
7. After chewing and swallowing it, breathe in and feel the echo of its flavor.
8. Are you happy?
— Faith
