TASTE AND SOPHISTICATION
Unassuming, tidy, contemporary counters. Dark, warm woodwork. Designer
display cabinets and furnishings. Inside Jean-Paul Hévin’s stores,
you’ll find a taste reflecting modernity and perfection, combined with
an atmosphere of elegance and comfort. These very qualities
characterize the J.P.H. label.
In the words of the Guide des Croqueurs de Chocolat (Chocolate
Lovers’ Guide), “the chocolates produced by that cocoa bean aficionado
feature a bitterness so excellent that even the most finicky of purists
will be won over. At the same time, adventurous types will be satisfied
with the unexpected flavors.”
How does Jean-Paul Hévin manage to maintain the consistently high
quality of his “black pearls”? He tells us that the secret is “the
high-quality ingredients, which I am constantly tasting and sampling. I
am just as uncompromising on the subject of where our fine cocoa beans
come from (selected mostly in Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, and
Madagascar) as I am about their flavor or color. My job, first and
foremost, is that of a taster. I’m not entrusting the responsibility of
testing to anyone else.” Jean-Paul Hévin has developed a number of
methods that enable him to “taste” each chocolate to detect the
different levels of flavors hidden deep within.
It is up to the master chocolatier’s know-how to do the rest. The
extreme choiceness of his chocolates depends upon the harmony of its
chords and upon this intimate blend of ingredients that are balanced so
subtly: top-quality cocoa beans, sugar and butter, the quantities of
which have been reduced so that J.P.H. chocolate, the very picture of
sophistication, retains all of its authentic taste.
FLAVOR AND FRESHNESS
To guarantee their extreme freshness, the boxes of chocolate are prepared each morning. Each customer can customize his/her box and choose an assortment from a selection of extra dark ganaches – the quintessence of J.P.H. taste and art-, pralines, and milk chocolates. Within each of these categories, however, customers will find fruit fillings, spices, caramels, or liqueurs, over forty different varieties: “It is with extreme care that I have selected those essences that suit each ingredient and can act as flavor enhancers. I love to create surprises!”
Passing up the chance to sample the artist’s chocolate cakes is also an impossibility: Pyramide, Caracas, Safi or Marquise instantly take connoisseurs to a world of sensory bliss. As for the many chocolate bars, just waiting to be enjoyed, the selection includes the woodsy “Java,” the soft and tender “Trinité,” mild “Ecuador” and other varieties slipped discreetly into their transparent case. These sweets feature the richness and delicate flavor that are responsible for Jean-Paul Hévin’s reputation as Paris’s leading chocolatier and definitely one of the world’s best chocolate makers.
A chocolate bearing the Jean-Paul Hévin label never sits on the store counter for more than three days. To fully appreciate the quality of the chocolate, chocolate lovers should eat the delicacies within two weeks and not below a certain temperature: “It must be enjoyed at room temperature, like a fine wine or a cake,” according to the expert chocolate maker. “You can recognize a fine chocolate by its dark, warm color and, most of all, its fragrance. As soon as the box is opened, the aroma must be bold, pervasive, delicate, and insistent, all at the same time. It must suggest pleasure and whet the customer’s appetite for the chocolate!”