To learn about your flavor preferences, ask chocolatiers which couverture they use. Couvertures give the chocolates their defining taste, regardless of fillings. Knowing that you like the chocolate flavor from chocolatier A, but don’t like the flavor of chocolatier B’s couverture as much, you will understand your preferred flavor profile. It’s like knowing that you like the fruitier style of many California Pinot Noirs better than the more balanced style of many Oregon Pinot Noirs.
Ask the chocolatier to describe the flavor profile of the couverture. You can develop a vocabulary of chocolate descriptors over time. Here is a Guide To Chocolate Descriptors that can help you progress.
Most chocolatiers don’t make a secret of the brand of couverture they use—they’re proud of their choices and love it when you are an educated consumer. And if you take the time to ask and to study, knowing your flavor preferences lets you make more informed choices the next time you purchase chocolate. Tip: helps tremendously in gift giving, you can choose flavors that the recipient likes.
If you know you enjoy chocolate made with Guittard couverture, the next time you see a Guittard, you might stop to buy it. Or, the next time you encounter a new chocolatier and find that he or she uses Guittard couverture, you know you have a good chance of really enjoying those chocolates.
Individual chocolatiers decide which brand of couverture to use, depending on their personal tastes and how they feel the couverture matches with the centers (fillings) they make. Some use more than one brand and/or different blends of beans, origin cacao or percentages of cacao within a brand, based on their feeling that specific couvertures pair better with particular items. Even within the same % cacao range, one couverture might taste better with nuts; another with fruits, fruit cremes and peel; another with caramels and toffee; and yet another with plain bars and ganaches.
Even if you don’t like a particular couverture as an eating chocolate, it will probably be splendid in baked goods and ice cream, where the flavor is nowhere as intense as biting into a chunk of it. One brand that has flavor notes that you may not enjoy in eating chocolate could end up being your top choices to use for baking or for making ice cream.
