Chocolate One-on-One: Hazel Lee
with Victoria Cooksey
— April 2018 Issue Preview Content —
Hazel Lee Talks with Victoria Cooksey…
Although we tend to focus on chocolate makers here in Chocolate One-on-One, this issue I’m happily introducing you to Hazel Lee, creator of the Taste with Colour® Chocolate Tasting Flavour Map. To call Hazel “busy with chocolate” would be quite the understatement. She leads Taste with Colour® workshops/chocolate tastings, often makes bean-to-bar chocolate, takes many chocolate trips to cacao origins, and even serves as a chocolate judge for the Academy of Chocolate Awards at the Northwest Chocolate Awards.
Whew! I had the pleasure of interviewing Hazel for the first time back in 2016 for my blog, Dark Matters Chocolate Reviews, and I’ve also chatted with her through several years at the Northwest Chocolate Festival in Seattle. I can also personally attest to the value of her Taste with Colour® maps for chocolate tastings, and as someone who even attended one of her Taste with Colour® workshops — where participants taste chocolate and then paint the colors and pictures they imagine while eating the chocolate — let me just say that Hazel is indeed the real deal.
It was such a pleasure to see/hear attendees reactions to chocolate in the workshop, especially those who were new to the craft chocolate world. Learn more about Taste with Colour®, what chocolate means to Hazel, and even tips on how craft chocolate makers can further promote their chocolate through social media in the interview below. Let’s get started…
Victoria Cooksey (VC): How did you first come up with the idea for your Taste with Colour® Chocolate Tasting Flavour Map?
Hazel Lee (HL): Through various chocolate tastings and judgings I struggled to identify individual flavour notes that I was experiencing but I did perceive some colours in my mind which were related to flavour. I created Taste with Colour® as a simple and approachable tool to help myself identify more flavours in chocolate through colours.
A few friends in the industry convinced me to start selling it and now it has been sold in over 20 different countries! I have already released a Brazilian version which has been translated into Portuguese with some additional flavours unique to Brazil including cupuacu (cacao’s cousin – Theobroma Grandiflorum) and pitanga (Brazilian cherry).
Photo by Hazel Lee
VC: Will you describe how best to utilize your Taste with Colour ® Chocolate Tasting Flavour Map?
HL: When tasting chocolate, close your eyes and simply allow the chocolate to melt and see what colours come to your mind. Head to that area of the map and look at the different flavours associated with those colours. For example, I often see burgundy, red or purple colours in my mind when tasting bars made from Kokoa Kamili beans (from Tanzania).
I head to these colored areas of the map and then the various flavours associated with these colours prompt me to identify the individual flavour notes that I am experiencing e.g. dried cherries. Sometimes people can identify flavour notes immediately and they can then go to the colours associates with those flavours on the map and see if it helps prompt any more flavour notes that they are experiencing.
VC: When did you first realize you saw colors when tasting chocolate?
HL: I am part of a chocolate tasting group that meets up every couple of months or so. We taste in a fairly plain environment (which I find helpful!) and it was during these tastings that I found myself thinking of flavours in terms of colour.
I began with some vocabulary of “some green notes” or “some bright red notes”. I then decided to connect the colours with flavours to help me identify the flavour notes associated with the colours.
VC: Now that you have given several Taste with Colour® chocolate tastings together with painting workshops, what types of reactions have you seen people experience, especially those new to the craft chocolate tasting world?
HL: Using painting as a tool has really encouraged the attendees to focus on what they are tasting and express themselves in a different way than just using words. Most people seem to be a bit hesitant at first with the painting but then they seem to be quite surprised and proud of the paintings that they produce in the end.
It has also stimulated a lot of discussion around how colours and packaging influence what we taste and how the flavours of the chocolate bars may influence the packaging designs.
For those new to the craft chocolate world, the workshops have definitely opened up their minds to the myriad of flavours that can be found in craft chocolate and separate it from the more industrial chocolate which has less variety and complexity in flavour.
Photo by Hazel Lee
VC: What influence, if any, do the colors on packaging/wrappers of chocolate bars have on people in terms of what they think the chocolate will taste like?
HL: I think that if the packaging has colours it will definitely influence how people will experience the chocolate (a lot of brands have the same packaging for all of their bars). However, I think it’s more that the flavour of the chocolate inspires the packaging design and colours of the packaging. A great example is Chocolate Tree’s 70% Ambanja bar from Madagascar. I used this at a recent workshop and gave it to the participants blindly and asked them to paint the colours and shapes that they tasted.
Afterwards I showed them the packaging and it was incredible to see how similar the colours were in the paintings and the packaging itself: oranges, reds and yellows! Ali, Co-Owner of Chocolate Tree, said that the flavours of the bars do inspire the packaging and he now has a Taste with Colour® map above his conch machine in the factory!
VC: How does Taste with Colour® assist when chocolate judging, and which awards do you participate in judging for currently?
HL: Taste with Colour® helps me identify more flavours from the bars that I am judging. Some individual flavour notes may come to mind, but as mentioned before, I often see a few different colours and I will then go to these colored areas of the map which will prompt me to identify even more flavours that I experience. I have used it so far in judging the Academy of Chocolate Awards and the Northwest Chocolate Awards.
Photo by Florencio Sanchez
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And please connect with Hazel via the channels below —
Website: http://hazeljlee.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/hazel-lee/39/aa1/775
Twitter: https://twitter.com/hazel_choc
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hazel_choc/
