What are “terroir” and “varietal” chocolates?
Terroir is a French term that means “of the earth.” What it means (in practice) is that the chemical composition of the soil, weather, climate, and variations in harvesting and other production processes have a profound effect on the way a finished food product tastes. With wine it’s easy to understand this relationship as the marketing of wine depends on terroir. It’s expected that a wine made from cabernet sauvigon grapes grown in the Loire valley in France has to taste difference from a wine made from cabernet sauvigon grapes (even from the same root stock) grown in the Barossa valley of Australia. Unlike wine, the vast majority of chocolate is blended, in part because modern chocolate is a product of the industrial revolution where one of the most cherished characteristics is consistency. Once you got used to the taste of (for example) Hershey’s, you would be upset if it tasted differently. A “terroir” chocolate is one where the origin of the beans is explicitly stated—some compani
