Got more sleep than I have the whole trip by waking up at 4 AM. Read for an hour and then worked out on the bike, rowing machine, and weights from 5-6:30 AM. Email for an hour and then off to meet the group. Riding on the train, I read one of three articles about our adventures (see my post at my main blog about the blurb on me in today's paper). Then, off to the main event of the day: chocolate tasting.
Now, you probably know that the Swiss are serious about their chocolate. Lindt chocolate is among the most prestigious in the world. The actual manufacturing plant itself was unavailable to us but we met in a big conference room, were met by reps from Lindt, and the two top chefs were their too. First, we were subjected to a 20 minute advertisement movie by Lindt which was hilarious in the seriousness with which they treated chocolate. Then, the main chef spoke in broken English about the tasting process. There is a systematic approach to tasting chocolate. First, clean the pallate (with bread or tea water). Then, smell, touch, break off a piece next to your ear to evaluate the "snap" sound, feel, and finally let it melt in your mouth and judge aroma. We all had a fantastic time going through the process, chatting it up with the chefs (who eat a ton of chocolate every day and whose job it is to come up with new applications/ideas around chocolate), and of course eating the samples (which were milk chocolate and dark chocolate). On top of it all, we were all given a big bag of Lindt chocolate with 7 or 8 different types of chocolate and varying percentages of coco, milk, etc.
Here are two pics of me posing with the chefs and the sample set up on the table:
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