A bittersweet competition: Australia's finest chocolate judged in Sydney

Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-23 15:48:30|Editor: Yurou
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SYDNEY, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Sydney Royal Chocolate Show concluded on Wednesday, with Australia's top chocolate tasters on hand to judge the nation's best.

Organized by the Royal Agriculture Society of New South Wales, the competition examined 18 commercial categories of chocolate including blocks, bars and decorative showpieces.

"A lot of people think 'it's easy', but after 130 exhibits, the last thing you want to look at is more chocolate," Sydney Royal Chocolate, Competition Chair of judges, Jodie Van Der Velden told Xinhua on Wednesday.

"No, it's really exciting and especially fun to look at new flavors and innovation."

"This is all about trying to award excellence in our industry, we are always excited to see what's new and happening."

In fact, the task of judging Australia's best chocolate is far more complex than one might imagine.

According to Van Der Velden, it requires a great deal of discipline, concentration and most of all, love of chocolate.

"It's not about your flavor preferences," Van Der Velden said.

"We all have flavor preferences, things that we like or dislike, so you really need to remove yourself from that and take a more technical approach."

"We have quite a strict judging criteria, you have to be committed to analysing what is in front of you," she added.

Overall, Australia's chocolate industry is worth in excess of 6 billion Australian dollars (4.73 billion U.S. dollars) and the fastest growing sub sector of the market is new and innovative, premium products.

"There are a lot of artisan and craft chocolate makers entering the market," Van Der Velden said.

"I would argue that we have some of the best chocolate in the world here in Australia, and the best chocolatiers."

"From the Royal Agricultural Society point of view, this is a very exciting because this is about people starting with the raw product, the cacao bean and then crafting that to an individual chocolate block."

The good news for chocolate lovers is that the higher end, more artisan products which are becoming more and more popular are often made with better quality dark chocolate, and are also much more healthy.

"Firstly I think chocolate is delicious, but secondly chocolate is not only really good for you, it's full of antioxidants, but it also makes you feel good," Van Der Velden said.

"Chocolate makes you release endorphins, chocolate contains a neurotransmitter called serotonin that acts as antidepressant and literally makes you feel good."

"If you talk to most people about why they like to eat chocolate, often it's because it actually makes you feel good."

The winners of the Sydney Royal Chocolate Show will be announced at the Sydney Fine Food Show at the end of September this year.

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