Tasting Lounge Sessions

The Chocolate Festival has teamed up with the fine chocolate experts at Seventy% to create The Tasting Lounge, bringing a fun and sensorial approach to chocolate talks and tastings. Explore your chocolate senses through games, experiments and themed sessions, with tastings and talks from some of the UKs leading master chocolatiers, chocolate experts and great UK chocolate companies. Each of their themed tasting sessions begins with a different sensory tasting game to get your taste buds going and introducing you to the right way to taste chocolate. Join us to explore themes such as: ‘Slow’, ‘Melt’, ‘Water’, ‘Flavour’, ‘Fine’, ‘Cacao’, ‘Origin’ and ‘Match’. Whether you’re dropping in for just one session or joining them for several tastings, you’ll have a chance to learn, taste and explore your inner chocolate self with some of the UK’s best and brightest chocolatiers including Paul Gregory. Seventypercent.com is a fine chocolate reviews and education web site, dedicated to “changing the way we eat chocolate”. As well as workshops, corporate events and tastings they also run the Chocolate Tasting Certificate Course with the International Institute of Chocolate Tasting.

Friday

1.00pm: The Lounge Session

CHILL: Start your Festival day with a sensory chill out session where you can relax, enjoy some of our sensorial tasting games and prepare yourself for a day of chocolate Festival enjoyment. FREE ENTRY FOR TASTING AND VIP TICKET HOLDERS.

2.00pm: Slow Chocolate with Martin Christy

SLOW: Tasting origin chocolate is like tasting good wine. Using sensory tasting games and chocolate sampling, Martin Christy gives us some simple and easy rules for appreciating fine chocolate.

3.00pm: Cacao to chocolate with Duffy Sheardown

CACAO: Chocolate making explained; Duffy Sheardown tells us how he creates award-winning micro-batch chocolate, taking us on a taste journey from bean to bar.

4.00pm: Tea and chocolate matching with Monica Meschini

MATCH: Italian tea and chocolate expert Monica Meschini shows us the correct way to make and taste fine tea and creates delicate, heavenly and healthy tasting combinations with fine chocolate.

5.00pm: Chocolate and water with Damian Allsop

WATER: Combining chocolate with water, chocolatier wizard Damian Allsop gives us a demonstration and let’s us discover the true flavour notes of chocolate with a tasting of his special water ganaches.

6.00pm: London Chocolate Tour with Jennifer Earle

FLAVOUR: Famous for her Chocolate Ecstasy Tours, Jennifer Earle takes us on a virtual tasting tour of some of London’s best chocolatiers and chocolate shops, with a sampling of filled chocolates and flavoured bars.

7:00pm: Sensory tasting workshop

MELT: Missed some of the day’s tasting games? We round off the Lounge sessions with a replay of some of our fun sensory tastings challenges and teasers.

Saturday

9.00am: The Lounge Session

CHILL: Start the day with sensory tasting exploration and games. Free with Tasting & VIP tickets. (See Friday for details)

10.00am: Slow Chocolate with Martin Christy

SLOW: How to taste fine chocolate. (See Friday.)

11.00am: Origin Milk Chocolate Tasting with Monica Meschini

ORIGIN: Can milk chocolate be as sophisticated and complex as fine origin dark chocolate? With cacao from different countries, we find out. Includes dark chocolate for comparison.

12.00pm: Cacao to chocolate with Duffy Sheardown

CACAO: How chocolate is made, with a leading UK micro-batch chocolate maker. (See Friday.)

1.00pm: Chocolate, the Italian way with Monica Meschini

MATCH: With over twenty years presenting tastings in Italy, Monica Meschini gives us a taste of the best of Italian chocolate, including the famous combination of chocolate and hazelnuts known as ‘gianduja’.

2.00pm: Exotic fruit, caramel and chocolate with Rococo Chocolates

FLAVOUR: Rococo’s founder Chantal Coady and head chocolatier Barry Johnson give us an inside view of flavouring filled chocolates, with a tasting of Rococo’s exotic award-wining caramels.

3.00pm: London chocolatier Marc Demarquette

FINE: Explaining how he chooses chocolate and works with ingredients, London chocolatier Marc Demarquette gives us a sample of his latest creations.

4.00pm: Chocolate and water with Damian Allsop

WATER: Demo and tasting of water ganaches, bringing out true chocolate flavours. (See Friday.)

5.00pm: Direct Cacao chocolate

ORIGIN: Tasting origin chocolate from members of Direct Cacao, a new organisation set up to promote direct sourcing from cacao farmer to chocolate maker.

6:00pm: Sensory tasting workshop

MELT: Finish the day with a replay of some of the day’s tasting games (See Friday).

Sunday

10.00am: The Lounge Session

CHILL: Start the day with sensory tasting exploration and games. Free with Tasting & VIP tickets. (See Friday).

11.00am: Slow Chocolate with Martin Christy

SLOW: How to taste fine chocolate. (See Friday.)

12.00pm: Tea and chocolate matching with Monica Meschini

MATCH: How to taste and appreciate tea and combine it with fine chocolate. (See Friday)

1.00pm: Chocolate and water with Damian Allsop

WATER: Demo and tasting of water ganaches, bringing out true chocolate flavours. (See Friday)

2:00pm: Origin Milk Chocolate Tasting with Martin Christy

ORIGIN: Fine origin flavour notes, tasting in artisan milk chocolate. (See Saturday)