Hundreds of Venezuelans Take Part in Record-Breaking Chocolate Sampling Event – LAHT

Fuente Web

At least 600 Venezuelans are taking part on Saturday in a chocolate sampling event that will earn them a mention in the Guinness World Records, which last year certified an 874-kilogram (1,925-pound) chocolate coin made in the South American country.

The Nuestra Tierra Foundation organized the mass chocolate tasting to mark the National Day of Cacao in Venezuela, bringing together hundreds of participants to sample 36 kilograms (79 pounds) of the tasty treat supplied by three cacao manufacturers.

The participants received a year’s worth of training at various sampling events, where they gained familiarity with a “sensory analysis” method that puts an element of science into the experience, the foundation’s chef, Yorkman Silva, told EFE.

“Guinness World Records didn’t ask us to do these (prior) samplings, but we said no. It can’t be just a matter of I got some people together, did a sampling and they gave me a Guinness Record, but instead we wanted to do it at a high level,” Silva said, noting that the event involved setting a record as opposed to breaking an existing one.

All of the participants are adults at the insistence of Guinness; there are young and middle-aged adults and senior citizens, and each will receive a total of nine grams of Venezuelan cacao, regarded as among the world’s finest, Silva said.

“(The samplers) will be seated, sample their chocolate, one three-gram portion, fill out a form and must cleanse their palate with a soda cracker and a bit of water before they can sample the next chocolate, and so on,” he explained.

The chocolate used is 70 percent cacao, as required by the foundation, and was provided by the companies Herencia Divina, +58 (both family-run operations) and Cacao Macuare (a union of several cooperatives) from fields they operate in the north-central state of Miranda.

The sampling is taking place at Caracas’ Poliedro, a 15,000-person-capacity stadium where the fourth annual International Chocolate Expo & Fair is being held through Sunday.

“We want it to be clear there are people working in Venezuela; there are people who are doing things well,” he said of that South American country currently racked by a severe economic and political crisis.

The idea is that people “start to realize that Venezuelan chocolate is going to become export-quality,” said Silva, who also coordinated the manufacture of the giant, Guinness World Record chocolate coin.