Geometric Chocolate Collection Employs Texture to Affect Taste
Chocolate as a work of art or as an element of aesthetics is nothing new in the world of design. And Japanese design studio Nendo is no stranger to having chocolate in their body of work.
Back in 2013, the studio designed chocolates packaged like a set of oil paints for Seibu the Japanese department store. This year, the design house has created a unique chocolate collection that alters texture and structure to affect taste.
Chocolatexture is a collection of nine different types of chocolate made in the same size but in various shapes and textures. The pieces feature pointed tips, smooth and rough exteriors, hollow interiors, and more. The different textures allow for differing tastes even though all the chocolate pieces in the collection are made of the same raw ingredients.
According to the studio’s description of the project, there are many factors that determine the taste of a piece of chocolate. These factors include what country the cocoa comes from, the kind of cocoa, the percentage content, the flavors inside, and the technique of the chocolatier. However, in their new chocolate concept, Nendo decided to put the focus on a different factor: the shape of the chocolate.
The nine pieces in the collection are named after Japanese expressions used to describe texture. Chocolatexture includes tubu-tubu or chunks of smaller chocolate drops; sube-sube with smooth edges and corners; zara-zara or granular like a file; toge-toge or sharp pointed tips; goro-goro or fourteen connected small cubes; fuwa-fuwa or soft and airy with many tiny holes; poki-poki or a cube frame made of chocolate sticks; suka-suka, a hollow cube with thin walls; and zaku-zaku, alternately-placed thin chocolate rods forming a cube.
The chocolate collection was showcased this month at Maison & Objet in Paris at a specially-designed space called the Nendo ChocolaTexture Lounge, where visitors could enjoy the chocolate collection with coffee. The Chocolate Texture Lounge included cocoa-colored furnishings to go with the chocolate theme.
Nendo was awarded “Designer of the Year” at the 2015 Maison & Object.
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