[Image via Concurring Opinions]
How this will all work for the next 30
reviews or so, I will be posting reviews from chocolates I have been
taking notes on for over a year. Certain chocolates I have have bin
numbers on them, but they were reviewed when received. Each review will
explain where they came from and around the time they were reviewed.
There will also be a Grading Scale for each review. A standard A-F scale but with a little bit of a twist. There will be five categories that can earn a maximum of 100 points.
Appearance
Aroma
Snap
Texture
Taste
The average total of all five scores will be tallied up to give a final score. The totals will be reflected with a letter grade.
A+ 98-100
A 95-97
A- 93-94
B+ 90-92
B 87-89
B- 85-86
C+ 82-84
C 79-81
C- 77-78
D+ 74-76
D 72-73
D- 70-71
F 0-69
Standard high school grading system.
A note for the readers. Taste is a subjective thing. What I might like or notes I taste in chocolate maybe completely different from you. Everyone has a unique and individual palate. It's best to remember that when imbibing on glorious things such as chocolate. The point is, there are no right or wrong answer when it comes to individual tastes. There are big generalizations about specific regions, but each palate has a number of reasons or variances which may drastically change the way one person smells or tastes something compared to another.
Well put on how subjective taste is. I just laugh every time I read "the world's best chocolate bar" or "the world's best anything" for that matter.
Are your criteria weighted at all? To me Taste is the most important, while Snap and Texture aren't that big a deal.
Posted by: Lowe | 03/14/2011 at 05:17 PM
In the beginning it wasn't weighted at all. But now it's becoming that way. Appearance has so many variables. But it will be critiqued harder if it has sugar or fat bloom.
I have been watching my reviews change and get more and more critical. But within reasons. At least I tend to think so anyway. I look back at some of my beginning reviews and found I was too generous. But I am not changing it because the point of the blog is to grow into my palate and learn to understand chocolate better. They best thing to do is revisit chocolates. They will change with each batch but that's the fun of it.
Posted by: Candice Alstrom | 03/15/2011 at 03:29 PM