February 29, 2020

Mushrooms & Chocolate, a DC Chocolate Society August 2019 Adventure

Mushrooms in your dark chocolate?

We were feeling adventurous at our August 15, 2019, DC chocolate society meeting.

Our tour guide, CIA trained (Culinary Institute of America) Matt Dixon, head chocolatier & co-owner of Harper Macaw, led us through the taste bud terrain. He re-introduced us to our five taste receptors: sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umamai.

Five taste sense — Testing our sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami taste buds

Next, we sampled chocolates that fit into each category: Salty, Sweet (that one was easy!), Sour, Bitter and Umami

Sweet, sour, salty and umami chocolate tasting — Sweet, sour, salty bitter and umami chocolate tasting samples

Chocolate covered tart (and sour) goldenberries by Pacari

Sweetness Chocolates — Testing our salt taste buds with a bar from Sweetness Chocolate

As part of our exploration, we tasted three different mushroom bars made with dark chocolate. (Practicing using our unami taste buds!)

We learned a lot about how our taste buds are specific to us, and practiced using our skills to pick up on the more subtle tastes that can be found in craft chocolate.

If you’d like to explore the unami taste in chocolate, check out our local chocolate maker, River-Sea Chocolates Mushroom Hazelnut Bar made with Maitake/Hen of the Woods mushrooms from North Carolina. This memorable chocolate/mushroom combo has a sweet, earthy taste. (https://www.riverseachocolates.com)