I DON’T HAVE THE WORDS.

So it’s Halloween, and I have something to say about chocolate. I love the stuff.

But I must hasten to add that I don’t much like candy. And much of what people MEAN when they say “chocolate” is just candy. As in most things slathered in “milk chocolate”. Ick.

What I like is dark and there’s often number associated with it. A percentage. But not always. Even better are those with not only numbers but countries. “Single origin” chocolate, made from beans from a particular area. Now you’re talking. This is something you can dig into and learn something about. Peru tastes different than Columbia than Tanzania than Vietnam. It’s really cool.

If you care to dive down the rabbit hole with me, you can check out this site, which claims to have tasted and rated (and remembered) over 1800 individual brands of chocolate: flavorsofcacao.com.

But here’s the thing that frustrates me: I’ve always been good with words, and can usually express what I am feeling or describing with some success. Except for this one thing, seemingly: what I am tasting when I taste chocolate. I guess I can’t get beyond the fog of caveman-like “yum” or “good” to get to what this website suggests — they have 14 different words under the heading of “flavor” on their “tasting chart”. And each of those break further into more sub-categories. “Sweet”, for example, apparently could be “honey”, “marshmallow”, “butterscotch” or “caramel”.

All I can taste is… is… nice.

And that’s just flavor. There’s also appearance, aroma, texture and the wonderfully-named “aftermelt”. Under that last there are four different possibilities under “astringent”.

Uncle, already. There is no category for “I like this and want more” but there should be.

Good thing I don’t drink wine.

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