{"id":1586,"date":"2011-10-30T08:34:50","date_gmt":"2011-10-30T14:34:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kerstinschocolates.com\/blog\/?p=1586"},"modified":"2011-11-01T15:53:20","modified_gmt":"2011-11-01T21:53:20","slug":"paris-chocolate-tour-with-chloe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kerstinschocolates.com\/blog\/?p=1586","title":{"rendered":"Paris chocolate tour with Chloe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thechocolatechronicles.com\/chronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/A240196.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-246\" title=\"Kerstin and Chloe at the start of the tour.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thechocolatechronicles.com\/chronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/A240196-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>The day after our visit to the Salon, Cyrus and I joined <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chloe-chocolat.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Chloe Doutre-Roussel<\/a>&#8216;s chocolate education\/chocolate tour. It was pretty awesome. I&#8217;ve been wanting to meet her since I read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Chocolate-Connoisseur-Chloe-Doutre-Roussel\/dp\/1585424889\">her book, The Chocolate Connoisseur, <\/a>several years ago. Her book helped me gain an understanding of fine chocolate and build a vocabulary to better explain what I was tasting.<\/p>\n<p>We started the morning out by tasting some chocolate. \u00a0It was fascinating &#8212; \u00a0I learned to taste chocolate in a different way. Chloe suggested that instead of picking out various notes in the chocolate, we should take note of how the chocolate makes us feel. She used the metaphor of a symphony to describe tasting chocolate. There&#8217;s the beginning, the<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-254\" title=\"The  Michel Cluizel Truffles\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thechocolatechronicles.com\/chronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/TheCluizelTruffles_A240209-300x247.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"247\" \/><\/p>\n<p>crescendo and the end. You don&#8217;t dissect the piece while you listen, but every once in a while your ear picks out the piano or the violin. Overall you listen to music for the pleasure that it gives you. It&#8217;s should be like that with chocolate. I hadn&#8217;t thought of it, but she said that you choose a chocolate because of the way it makes you feel, and you do the same when you choose the music you want to listen to.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thechocolatechronicles.com\/chronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/A240214.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-247\" title=\"Asking questions and getting answers.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thechocolatechronicles.com\/chronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/A240214-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>Afterwards we went to Rue St. Honore where we visited 2 chocolate shops: Michel Cluizel and Jean-Paul Hevin. We compared the difference between a fresh truffle and one that was made to last a long time. The fresh one from Hevin was as delicious as I remembered from a year ago. We concentrated on plain dark ganaches and a rocher made of praline (roasted hazelnuts and caramelized sugar). The difference between them was interesting.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thechocolatechronicles.com\/chronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/A240227.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-249\" title=\"Outside the Maison Du Chocolat\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thechocolatechronicles.com\/chronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/A240227-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>My favorite rocher was the one I tried at La Maison du Chocolat. It nearly brought tears of joy to my eyes. During our morning discussion, Chloe told us that the French don&#8217;t forgive inconsistencies in quality. Once you&#8217;ve messed up, you don&#8217;t get another chance. Thank you La Maison for always delivering!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thechocolatechronicles.com\/chronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/A240230.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-250 alignleft\" title=\"Outside Pierre Marcolini\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thechocolatechronicles.com\/chronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/A240230-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>We stopped at Pierre Marcolini (who has partnered with Nestle since 2007 but is still making great chocolate as far as I can tell) before ending the tour at Gallery Lafayette where Chloe dropped us off at the chocolate section. She suggested we buy our gifts here because they have the best selection and best prices for gourmet bars in the city. Knowing I was planning a visit to the Valrhona and Bonnat factories, I decided against buying anything, but didn&#8217;t stop me from marveling at the selection (and prices!).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thechocolatechronicles.com\/chronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/A240217.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-248\" title=\"Chocolate Heart from Jean-Paul Hevin\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thechocolatechronicles.com\/chronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/A240217-300x238.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"238\" \/><\/a>Chloe&#8217;s tour was a huge highlight of my trip to Paris (dare I say I enjoyed it even more than the Salon du Chocolat?). It was great to meet someone so influential in the chocolate world and to learn from her the secrets of enjoying chocolate even more (which I had thought \u00a0was impossible!). Once again I am in awe of how much there is to know about chocolate, and I am inspired after meeting people who are truly knowledgable.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thechocolatechronicles.com\/chronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/A240235.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-251\" title=\"The Entrance to Gallaries Lafayette Gourmet\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thechocolatechronicles.com\/chronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/A240235-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thechocolatechronicles.com\/chronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/A240239.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-252\" title=\"A pyramid of Pralus Towers!\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thechocolatechronicles.com\/chronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/A240239-242x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"242\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thechocolatechronicles.com\/chronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/A240244.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-253\" title=\"Kerstin, Cyrus and Chloe at the end of the tour.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thechocolatechronicles.com\/chronicles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/A240244-300x222.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"222\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The day after our visit to the Salon, Cyrus and I joined Chloe Doutre-Roussel&#8216;s chocolate education\/chocolate tour. It was pretty awesome. I&#8217;ve been wanting to meet her since I read her book, The Chocolate Connoisseur, several years ago. Her book &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kerstinschocolates.com\/blog\/?p=1586\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[242,240,243,111,241],"class_list":["post-1586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kerstins-news","tag-chloe","tag-chloe-doutre-rousell","tag-chocolate-tour","tag-paris","tag-paris-chocolate-tour"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerstinschocolates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerstinschocolates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerstinschocolates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerstinschocolates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerstinschocolates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1586"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerstinschocolates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1601,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerstinschocolates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586\/revisions\/1601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerstinschocolates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerstinschocolates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerstinschocolates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}