Chocolate Database

Some time ago, a colleague of Jeff Dunn brought a bar of chocolate to work that was 99% cocoa solids. It was like eating compressed cocoa powder! Not long after, Jeff brought in a bar of Madagascan chocolate and this was delicious, with a smooth flavour and creamy finish. They were now becoming intrigued about the world of chocolate and Jeff researched the subject on the internet and found that chocolate can be as varied and full of character as any wine or cheese.

Jeff says…

"The trouble is, the finest chocolate bars are often too expensive for one person to buy just to see what they are like (unless they have a much higher pay grade). So about a dozen of us clubbed together to buy some bars of chocolate from all over the world from a specialist website – an exercise that proved so popular and successful that we have done it several times since then.

Some bars were wonderful (including to our surprise one of the few milk chocolate bars we sampled), others were nice but unremarkable, and a few were memorable for being absolutely foul. Bento was ideal for keeping track of what we liked and what we did not like because it has a built-in star rating system. I set up a database with fields for name, maker, country of origin, type of cocoa beans, percentage of cocoa solids, a picture of the wrapper etc. We gave each bar stars out of ten for aroma, texture, flavour, presentation and value for money, with an overall average score. Presented as star-rating fields, these look like a sort of block graph, presenting the information in a pleasing visual format that is easier to take in than just a number in a box would be. I also set up a smart collection to filter out the crème de la crème – those with an overall score of 8 stars or more.

Looking at the records on Bento, you can see at a glance which confections impressed us, which to avoid and which were merely mediocre. But this is more than just an interesting visual record. With Christmas just gone and Easter on its way, it has become a useful resource for finding something unusual and a little bit special for the chocoholics in our lives."

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