Chocolate love

A bittersweet romance

Our collective appetite for gourmet chocolate has grown from a Valentine’s Day splurge to an everyday treat. Here’s a look at the allure of artisan chocolate made with love by a premier chocolatier and the latest on dark chocolate’s many benefits—giving us all the more reason to celebrate.



When co-founders John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg launched Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker in 1996, they drew heavily upon Scharffenberger’s refined palate and love of dark chocolate, as well as his experience as a maker of sparkling wines. “I’d already worked on a complicated production process when I was making sparkling wine. Winemaking production rules are so stringent; it’s a very ‘take-no-prisoners’ process. Winemaking is also very competitive––how many other consumer products have 4,000 brands in the competition like wine has?”
    Scharffenberger and Steinberg had known each other since the early 1980s. After Scharffenberger sold his interest in Scharffenberger Cellars, Steinberg approached him about making artisan chocolate. “I thought, ‘Wow! What a great idea!’ We set out to make the richest, most flavorful chocolate by using artisan methods and sourcing the best cacao beans in the world.”     Scharffen Berger chocolate is masterfully crafted in small batches of just 300 pounds using old-world chocolate-making methods and restored vintage European machinery. As with wine and coffee, the origin of premium chocolate has become a selling point. Scharffen Berger chocolate, made from proprietary cacao bean blends from nine different cacao-growing regions throughout the world, showcases the intense and complex flavors present in cacao. In addition to cacao beans, which are considered a fruit, Scharffen Berger chocolate also contains sugar, cocoa butter and very small amounts of lecithin and vanilla from whole vanilla beans imported from Madagascar and Tahiti, a rare practice in chocolate manufacturing. The resulting fruity, winy, complex dark chocolate is consistently good for eating as well as baking.
    Scharffen Berger’s chocolate bar collection comes in a variety of cacao percentages, including 41 percent cacao milk chocolate, 62 percent cacao semisweet chocolate, 70 percent cacao bittersweet chocolate, 82 percent cacao extra dark chocolate and 99 percent cacao unsweetened chocolate, which contains no sugar at all. The percentages indicate by weight the amount of cacao in the chocolate. Scharffen Berger also sells Natural Cocoa Powder and Cacao Nibs, little pieces of roasted cacao beans with fruity, earthy flavors that can add a nutty crunch to desserts and salads. Scharffenberger says if he could only have one kind of chocolate, he’d choose his personal favorite: the Scharffen Berger 82 percent.
   

John Scharffenberger holds a cacao pod containing 20-40 cacao beans.

Before Scharffenberger and Steinberg started making chocolate, California was already home to a number of noted chocolate makers: Ghirardelli in San Francisco, Nestlé USA in Glendale, Guittard Chocolate Company in Burlingame and See’s Candies in South San Francisco. In 2000, California edged out Pennsylvania, home of Hershey’s, to become the country’s chocolate capital. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, by 2004 California had 136 companies producing chocolate and cocoa products compared to Pennsylvania’s 122.
    Just like a winery, Scharffen Berger offers tours of its Berkeley factory where 40,000 visitors a year learn about chocolate making and munch on samples. Scharffenberger, who used to lead the tours when the company first started, says his favorite part is still the tasting. “That’s really what it comes down to—teaching people how to really taste chocolate and understand the different flavors.” The flavor sequence occurs in about 10 seconds, he says. “First, take a little bite, chew a little and then swallow. You need to get your palate tuned into chocolate’s flavors. Assess how it snaps and cracks and how a little smell comes through. Even more smell comes through when it sits on your tongue because you smell it internally.”
    Scharffenberger then explains how the flavors are further detected as the chocolate melts. “You taste the fruit acids and they taste sour. Then you taste the fruit and it becomes more identifiable—sometimes cherry, sometimes pruney. Your mouth starts to dry out and the soft tannins in the chocolate trick your brain into asking, ‘What’s down there on my tongue?’” He says if the chocolate is good and the tannins are right, the flavor will linger for a few minutes. “You don’t have to eat a lot of chocolate to get a lot of satisfaction.”
    As for the growing body of evidence about the health benefits of dark chocolate, Scharffenberger responds, “We like to say that it has nutritional value so its reputation for sinfulness and decadence becomes less important.”



University of California, Davis researchers, however, are more specific. While they’re still figuring out exactly how the nutrients in chocolate offer such wide-reaching health benefits, evidence is mounting that they do. Carl Keen, professor of nutrition and internal medicine, has been looking at the compounds in cocoa and chocolate, especially the flavonoids and its subgroup, flavonols. “What intrigues me is the hypothesis that diets rich in plant foods reduce the risk for some diseases, including cardiovascular disease. We’ve had one surprise after another researching these compounds.
    “There is increasing evidence that consuming flavonoid-rich cocoas and chocolate can be associated with a number of positive effects with respect to vascular health. For example, when you eat flavonol-rich chocolate, a high proportion of the flavonols are rapidly absorbed, with high concentrations occurring in the blood in about 45 minutes to an hour. As a result, there is an increased production of nitric oxide, an important gas in the body that can help blood vessels to relax, thus improving blood flow. There are some reports that over time this can result in reductions in blood pressure. What we’re learning opens the door to a ‘let food be thy medicine’ philosophy. We really can get some strong health effects from certain foods.”
    Ounce for ounce, dark chocolate typically contains more flavonols than any fruit or vegetable out there; thus, there is the perception that the darker the chocolate, the greater the boost to your health. However, it is important to note that the flavonoid content of chocolate can be markedly influenced by food processing techniques. Some sources suggest that a daily ounce of chocolate containing at least 60 percent cacao provides all the flavonols you need to reap health benefits.
    Flavonols have been shown to improve the ability of blood vessels to expand and contract, providing for better blood flow in your brain, hands and legs. They help the body use nitric oxide, which regulates blood pressure, thereby lowering it. They increase HDL (good) cholesterol, lowering the risk of heart attack. And like aspirin, flavonols decrease the stickiness of blood platelets, reducing the risk of blood clots and stroke. Dark chocolate’s benefits don’t stop at the heart. Some researchers suggest that flavonols may also help fight inflammation, prevent prostate disease and even boost your mood.
    As for chocolate’s mood-altering qualities, what about its reputation as an aphrodisiac? Scharffenberger confides, “I think it’s a sex substitute, not an aphrodisiac. Chocolate affects your pleasure center in a minor way. If you can’t have sex, have chocolate.”

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