A Flavour Library

What’s a flavour library you ask? It can be as simple as an array of spices/herbs/foods/aromatic non-foods of flavours you may find in dark fine chocolate.

The purpose of this is to help train your brain to recognize and discern the flavours in your chocolate. Many of us think we have a great memory, and although certain aromas in fine chocolate can remind us of some foods - if we were to smell or eat those foods - we’d find sometimes that we were wrong. We can’t always just rely on memory.

So if you are training yourself to better discern flavours, simply make up a flavour library. This can be as simple as setting a time to sit down, and grabbing a variety of foods from your kitchen, and even aromatic non-foods (flowers, tobacco, moss etc.). Just lay them in front of you (you don’t need to decant them) and spend time mindfully smelling them.

You can do this while you taste your chocolate, or just do this alone, and taste the fine chocolate later or another day.

It will help your brain really remember what these things smell or taste like, and make your tasting skills a little bit more accurate.