The Chocolate Teapot
Ever heard of a teapot made of dark chocolate? Be surprised, because there is a teapot completely made out of chocolate, that doesn’t even melt, even after boiling water! The chocolate teapot would be an inconceivable dream for all the chocolate lovers. The CNet reported that BBC’s famous ‘The One Show’ called the ‘chocolate teapot’, an entirely unpractical idea; thereby rousing Nestle to the dare of creating one. Of course, it does seem to be a little incredulous, but Nestle rose to the task. This challenge was tackled in York, England, at Nestle’s Product Technology Centre.
Nestle’s Product Technology Centre, is basically a facility that concentrated on the research of evolving different types of confectionary goods, as well as iterate the already existing formulas of products. It also focuses on formulating new technologies for making different types of candy. Everything from little candies to whole bars of chocolate, all of these recipes was constantly reformulated to improve the taste, the quality as well as the nutrition.
John Costello is a master chocolatier at the research facility. He spent years entering in different competitions as a chocolate sculptor. His chocolate sculptures are quite marvelous to behold, not to mention, delicious! He made the teapot with dark chocolate that had a whole 65 percentage of pure cocoa seeds, as the shape of the teapot would be sturdier because of the low fat content in the cocoa seeds. Dark chocolate is mainly made of pure grounded cocoa beans, and also from chocolate liquor, which is basically liquid chocolate that was made by grinding these cocoa beans. Dark chocolate has wonderful anti-oxidant properties too, as well as a number of health benefits. Unlike Milk Chocolate, since dark chocolate consists mostly of cocoa solids (more than 60 percent), makes it very firm and less prone to melting. Layers and layers of chocolate build-up were done by doing a number of experiments with balloons. This analysis over time, helped the group to determine what was the desired thickness required to make the chocolate teapot sturdy enough to hold boiling water.
The team finally found success in creating the wonder chocolate teapot, and it actually withstood the boiling temperature of the water that was poured into it! However, it was required that one does not stir the water while it was in the chocolate tea pot, but rather to let it brew the tea undisturbed. After two minutes of brewing, the tea was poured into a cup. The amount of chocolate residue in the tea was very little. The tea brewed in this miracle teapot actually had a powerful tea flavor, with only a trace of chocolate, which is quite surprising, considering that the hot tea was made in a teapot made out of chocolate! How riveting! All the chocolate lovers would surely love this.
Nestle therefore, helped proved that the whole idea of a teapot literally made out of chocolate, didn’t just seem to be an absurd thought at all!