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“I have a deep desire for justice. So I try to create awareness about what is wrong and what could be done to make it choco-better. ” — Chloé Doutre-Roussel, Chocolate Taster

REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: Jon Miller

I first heard about Chloé Doutre-Roussel from my wife, who works in international development. One of her colleagues told her about an eccentric Frenchwoman with an incredible sense of smell who travels the world as a freelance chocolate taster. She charges thousands of dollars a day but prefers not to sample more than four chocolates in a sitting.

Now that, I thought, was an interesting job.

So I looked her up. It turns out that Doutre-Roussel is the closest thing to a rock star in the world of fine chocolate. The New York Times called her a "goddess." (They also called her "twinkly," and noted that she maintains a wispy figure despite the prodigious amount of chocolate she consumes every day.) Raised in South America and sent to school in France, she taught herself to taste as a teenager, developing detailed notes about each chocolate's "price to pleasure" ratio. In her 30s, despite the fact that she had no formal training, she beat out 3,500 applicants to become the chocolate buyer at Fortnum & Mason, London's ultra-high-end department store. While working there she researched and wrote a book called The Chocolate Connoisseur. Now on her own, she is in great demand, not just because of her skill at tasting but because of her brutal honesty.

Now that, I thought, was an interesting person.

I sent her an e-mail and got a reply within minutes. She was in Singapore and yes, she'd be glad to meet. The next day's message was from Hong Kong. Should we try to connect in Japan? The message after that was from Shanghai. Or could I come to Costa Rica? Or maybe to her home in Paris? I finally arranged to intercept her at a workshop in Ecuador, where she'd been invited by a group of cacao exporters eager to capitalize on the fine chocolate boom.

Ten years ago there was no need for globetrotting international chocolate experts. But now, with the spectacular growth of the "gourmet" chocolate market, everyone wants to get into the game. British lawyers, Italian artisans, multinational food companies, Japanese department stores, German aid organizations, Malagasy peasant cooperatives, Venezuelan landed gentry, American environmental groups — all are working furiously on their packaging, their marketing strategies, and (sometimes) their chocolate bars. Quality is all over the map. It drives Doutre-Roussel crazy, but it gives her her mission, and her niche.

That's because nothing irks Chloé Doutre-Roussel more than mediocre chocolate in a beautiful wrapper. Especially galling are the bland confections of mass-market manufacturers masquerading as gourmet. "I have a deep desire for justice," she confided one night after a long workshop session. "And I have easily detected the impostors and the unjust situations in the chocolate world. So I try to create awareness about what is wrong and what could be done to make it choco-better."

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“I see her with a kind of fiery, flaming sword of truth charging through the legions of average chocolate makers.” — Martin Christy, co-founder, Academy of Chocolate

LINKS

The Chocolate Connoisseur (book by Chloé Doutre-Roussel)

Chloe Chocolat (Chloé Doutre-Roussel's website)

Child labor links (child labor is a major problem in cacao growing in Africa)

Chocolat: Music from the Miramax Motion Picture (source of the music in this profile)

That means teaching consumers how to tell good chocolate from bad (mainly through her book and public and private tastings), and offering advice to clients (from grassroots non-profits to well-heeled firms) on everything from the cultivation of cacao (she has a degree in agronomy) to subtle refinements of chocolate-making recipes and techniques. It's a formidable task. There are dozens of steps between the bean and the bar, and each is dauntingly complex. And in the end, despite the attention of scores of scientists and technicians, no one really knows what makes a great chocolate great.

Indeed, at this time of upheaval, one of the few reliable instruments for measuring greatness is Chloé Doutre-Roussel's famous nose.

Having that nose has its costs, and not just because it picks up odors most of us are glad not to notice. It isn't easy flying across the globe to tell an anxious chocolate maker that his or her product stinks. But that's what Doutre-Roussel has to do all the time. Her forthrightness can be painful both for her and her clients, but she understands that her opinion is so highly valued because she pulls no punches. "One of my known skills," she told me, only half proudly, "is my lack of diplomacy."

Her colleagues tend to forgive her her excesses. Martin Christy, editor of the website seventypercent.com and one of her co-presenters at the Ecuador workshop, says Doutre-Roussel is chocolate's Joan of Arc. "I see her with a kind of fiery, flaming sword of truth charging through the legions of average chocolate makers."

Which is not to say there's no room for other opinions. Doutre-Roussel insists that people's taste in chocolate differs, and that very different chocolates can all be excellent. In fact much of the pleasure, she says, lies in finding the right chocolate for your taste or mood. A fine chocolate may have fruit tones, or floral, or tobacco, or leather; it may be gentle or aggressive; it may be sweet or not so sweet; it may be red or almost black. But it shouldn't taste burnt or like rubber or chemicals; it shouldn't be grainy or cloying or chewy or waxy. Her job is not to make pronouncements about which chocolate is best, but to help people recognize strengths and fix problems.

Chloé Doutre-Roussel and I spent the better part of five days together, and talked about everything from the genetics of cacao to the search for balance in life. She told me about her desire to have a family and about the toll her constant traveling was taking on her body. We talked about her ongoing effort to reconcile her love of luxury with her arguably stronger love of austerity and quiet. She said she knew that chocolate isn't the most important thing on earth. But it's something she cares about, and something she knows about, and somewhere she can make a difference.

Which aligns quite nicely with what I came to understand as Chloé Doutre-Roussel's central dogma: that we should all pay very close attention to what makes us happy, and design our lives around that.

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