The Sweet (and Chocolatey) Taste of Geometric Perfection
(Nendo/Akhiro Yoshida)
Nearly everyone loves chocolate but the shape of the treat is usually just an afterthought. Well, one Japanese designer set out to show that building the perfect chocolate texture can be just as important to the experience as the sweet ingredients inside.
Dezeen Magazine says that as part of the Maison&Objet show in Paris, Japanese design firm Nendo unveiled a series of 9 different chocolate designs, each specifically crafted into a texture meant to invoke a different experience for the person eating them. That’s right, the design is meant to enhance the flavor.
"Cocoa’s country of origin, kind, percentage content, technique of the chocolatier’s, the flavors inside… There are many factors that determine a chocolate’s taste," Nendo said in a statement announcing the new collection. "In coming up with a new chocolate concept, we turned our attention not to such factors, but to the chocolate’s shape."
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As it turns out, there might be some scientific evidence that savoring the texture of a snack food like chocolate can actually be a healthy practice. In a study on whether chocolate is addictive, researchers at Harvard offered the following piece of advice in their findings: “If you decide to have chocolate, focus on each bite, slowly, to extend the pleasure in it.”
Each of the 9 shapes was given a specific name reflecting a Japanese expression for different textures, including “goro-goro,” “poki-poki.” “tubu-tubu,” and “zara-zara.”
(Nendo/Akhiro Yoshida)
Some of the shapes are light and soft in appearance, while another looks like a flatbed of spikes. In order to emphasize the concept that texture means as much as ingredients, Nendo used the same type of chocolate for each of the 9 different shapes.
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It’s also not the company’s first foray into unusual chocolate creations. As Wired explains:
“A few years ago they made a box of chocolates in the form of tiny paint tubes. Before that, they created a set of chocolate, which chocolate lovers could ‘sharpen’ onto desserts. Most recently, the studio partnered with Häagen-Dazs to make ice cream cakes that looked like little villages.”
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