Honing My Craft As a Chocolate Sommelier

Just Call Me Koko Sommelier...

When I retire, my aspiration will be to become a chocolate sommelier, and a cheese one part-time, of course! Interestingly enough, the article mentions chocolate from São Tomé, which is actually my favorite bar from the Parisian confectioner, Richart. (So yes, I actually kinda know what I'm talkin' about!!!)

Chocolate That Flashes Its Passport

"So it has come to this. Chocolate, a comfortable world that for many people exists between the downscale joy of a Kit Kat bar and the exhilaration of a well-made ganache, now requires a sommelier.

It is no longer enough to understand the difference between milk and bittersweet. Even the know-it-all chocolate cowboys who brag about eating nothing less than 85 percent cocoa bars are out of their league.

Now, the game is all about origin. As with olive oil or coffee, knowing where one's chocolate came from is starting to matter. Even the most casual wine drinker can name a preferred varietal, and the neophyte cheese fan understands that Brie is French and good Cheddar comes from England.

Mr. Miller's job is to help the baffled but curious make sense of it all. His tools are a tray of foil-wrapped chocolate wafers from several countries, a glass of water and a little bowl of tortilla chips — he prefers unsalted — to provide a palate scrub.

One day last week, he walked me through a $35 tasting. We pondered the snappy break and acidic finish of chocolate from the African island of São Tomé and discussed how growing cacao trees in the soil of a former mango grove might result in chocolate with a faint flash of the fruit. We contemplated the raisiny ways of a bar from Papua New Guinea, which Mr. Miller suggested would go well with port."