Sifting through sweet complexities
In the last decade, choosing chocolate has become more than just a matter of picking out an ordinary candy bar. And it certainly isn't just milk, white, or dark anymore. Today's chocolates tell you the percentage of cocoa powder they contain. And if they're filled, it might be with an unexpected flavor like grapefruit caramel or habanero chili. In fact, chocolate, one of life's simple pleasures, is now confusing.
Enter Caroline Yeh. The owner of Temper Chocolates in Kenmore Square's Hotel Commonwealth has made it her mission to help the uninitiated make sense of her somewhat mysterious world. In addition to selling world-famous chocolates in her bite-size boutique and coffee bar, Yeh offers classes where students learn how to taste chocolate and how it is made. ''The chocolate industry is getting more complex," Yeh tells a group of tasters recently. ''I want you to be able to read the [chocolate] label and know what it means. Why pay $5 or $10 for chocolate?" she asks. And in the course of the evening, it becomes obvious what quality is and how to spot it.
From the beginning, Yeh planned to offer classes as part of her endeavor, but didn't know how popular they would become. ''We've sold out every one," she says. On a chilly Thursday evening recently, 30 students seated around a U-shaped conference table at the hotel surveyed their tasting goods: eight squares of chocolate (two milk and six dark), a glass of water, and a three-page primer.
The three main trends in the industry, explains Yeh, are percent, origin, and varietal. Several manufacturers are starting to include percentage of cocoa on their labels (this refers to the amount of cocoa in each bar; the more cocoa, the less sugar).
She guides the class through the tasting process, starting with the milk chocolate and working through the different varieties of dark -- some contain up to 70 percent cocoa. There are samples made from different beans (this is the varietal), harvested in different countries (the chocolate's origin). Yeh advises participants to pay attention to the flavor and texture. ''Let it sit on your tongue," she says, ''then bite in."
One participant notes that a square of Hershey's is ''gritty," yet ''familiar." A square of 66 percent cocoa is deemed ''harder," with a ''different aftertaste." Later, another taster detects a hint of tobacco in a 70 percent cocoa sample made from a blend of beans.
A one-time pastry cook -- Yeh worked at Gotham Bar & Grill in New York -- the chocolatier discovered New York's many chocolate boutiques, including Chocolate Bar, Jacques Torres, MarieBelle, Chocolat Moderne, and La Maison du Chocolat, which were all ''very influential" in her professional transformation.
But much as she loved the shops, the Los Angeles native and University of Pennsylvania graduate did not enjoy living in the city. In 2002, Yeh came to Boston and moved in with her sister, who was in medical school. ''I thought, 'Boston should have a great chocolate shop,' " Yeh recalls. ''Then I thought, '' 'I should open it.' "
She took courses at New York's Institute of Culinary Education and attended British Columbia's Ecole Chocolat. She also traveled widely to spot the trends in chocolate production. She wouldn't be making chocolate, she decided, ''but I needed to understand how it was made."
During her tasting class, Yeh explains that a new trend is to move away from blending beans, creating what are known as ''origin chocolates," using cocoa beans from individual countries. The flavor of artisanal chocolate is directly impacted by the beans that go into it because they pick up distinct characteristics from their ''terroir" -- or the environment in which they grow. Trinidad, Grenada, and Venezuela are key areas for cultivating beans. Another industry trend is to list the type of bean on the chocolate wrapper.
The price of chocolate reflects, among other things, the cost of the beans and the labor. Temper Chocolates sells the world's most expensive bars -- Porcelana, made from the Porcelana bean, a genetically pure strain of the rare Criollo bean -- from Italian chocolatier Amedei. Amedei makes 20,000 bars a year, each numbered and sold for $12.
Pricey for a candy bar. But as Yeh points out, ''You can't get the most expensive wine, cheese, or olive oil for $12." Comparatively speaking, you might say, it's something of a bargain.
Temper Chocolates, Hotel Commonwealth, 500 Commonwealth Ave., 617-375-2255, www.temperchocolates.com. The next chocolate class ($15 per person) will be held Feb. 24. 
