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Blake Jones
 
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Default Guittard gourmet bittersweet

In article >, Alex Rast wrote:
> One important fact to remember is that there is nothing that makes a
> chocolate with highly pedigreed beans, especially pure formulations,
> or anything else automatically better. It all comes down to how it
> tastes


It absolutely does.

> [...]
>
> And as it turns out, Guittard Gourmet Bittersweet's taste is almost
> *entirely* chocolatey, with very, very few other components
> detectable, and better still, it delivers this flavour with a powerful
> wallop - in fact relative to its percentage (63%) it seems unusually
> strong.


I can understand where you're coming from. My favorite blue cheese is
the Mountain Gorgonzola from Clin, and the only reason I've been able to
give is that it delivers a singular, strong flavor which I feel is the
"idealized" blue cheese taste.

> I'll also point out that I don't consider including milkfat in
> chocolate to be dishonourable


Of course, it has its place. As you said, it's all about how it tastes.
It just seemed to me that the term used to describe it ("butter oil")
suggested that it was being used as a cocoa butter replacer, rather than
a flavor enhancer; presumably it doesn't have any of the tasty non-fat
milk solids that milk and cream have.

> So there you have it, the breakdown on Gourmet Bittersweet.


Thanks for the scoop! It's interesting to see such details from someone
who clearly loves their chocolate.

> Where are you at? I can probably either point you at a source or send
> you some, depending on your situation.


I'm just north of Guittard Central, in San Francisco. There are lots of
local retailers in town that have the little L'Harmonie and Soleil d'Or
samplers, a fair number that carry a selection of the 1 kg E. Guittard
bars, and there's a wholesaler just south of here that has pretty much
the complete Guittard line, including the 10 lb. Gourmet Bittersweet.
But I haven't found a place that has GB in less than 10 lb. quantities.

So if you happen to know of any place in the SFBA that carries it in
smaller quantities, that would be great. If not, I'd suggest a mail
swap - e.g. there's a retailer here that's selling partial slabs of
Domori's Carenero Superior couverture, at a price point that's more
appealing than their 8g samplers - but it's been getting pretty hot
recently, and the proper packing material might cost more than the
chocolate...

Blake

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