Sugar Savvy

An alluring spokeswoman for the Max Brenner chocolate company in Australia recently implored me to join her for an orchid hot chocolate, swearing by the floral beverage’s aphrodisiac properties.  Since orchids are the source of countless fascinations and fixations (and even phobias, I’m told), this seemed like a stirring topic for Sugar Savvy’s hot chocolate column.  But when it came time to touch the provocative stuff to my lips, it had already disappeared.  The orchid drink has been a Max Brenner staple in Australia in past years.  But, when I met the spokeswoman at one of the Melbourne branches last week, there was none to be had.  It turns out that Max Brenner’s Australian outlets have been out of stock for several months.

A bit of explanation is necessary here.  “Max” Brenner (real name: Oded) is an Israeli pastry chef who founded his own chocolate shop in Tel Aviv in the 1990’s.  In 2000, an Australian husband and wife were so taken by Brenner’s uber-contemporary chocolate creations (not to mention his uber-hip marketing campaign) that they struck a deal with the by-then-master chocolatier to run several Max Brenner shops in Sydney and Melbourne, effectively as a franchise.  However, this year Brenner himself became a player in the global chocolate game with the much-publicized opening of two shops in New York.  Brenner’s parent company (Israeli food conglomerate Strauss-Elite) has made several recent changes to the Max Brenner product line in order to operate more effectively in a much bigger market.  For the step-siblings of the Max Brenner family in Australia, these changes boil down to an organizational nuisance at best and a logistical nightmare at worst.  A rumor is circulating among the staff at the Australian shops that the orchid products are too hard to produce on the large scale and have been removed from the line-up for good.  That orchid factoid is unconfirmed, but certainly a reasonable assertion.

I left the downtown Melbourne Max Brenner café knowing that if I wanted to taste the elusive chocolate and orchid elixir any time soon, I would have to make it myself.  Then the real mystery began.  What, exactly, is the active ingredient in orchid hot chocolate? I wondered.  The ingredients list printed on one of the Max Brenner do-it-yourself boxes of hot chocolate powder would have been very telling, if I could have found one.  Not only are the Max Brenner stores out of stock but when I asked about the Brenner hot chocolate mixes at David Jones, an epicenter of gourmet food in Australia, the lady behind the counter told me that “it’s lovely stuff, but we don’t carry it anymore.”  (Interestingly, they’ve since restocked.)

I started to think that I might have better luck finding the secret orchid recipe through unofficial channels, so I did a search for relevant articles on food blogs.  Several bloggers (including those from The Food Nerds and Tangent) have tried Max Brenner’s orchid-flavored drink, and the consensus is that “orchid oil” is what gives the sultry libation its life blood.  I did another search.  Other than suspicious-looking soap and massage cream, the only thing a Google search for “orchid oil” turned up was an oil lamp with an orchid flower suspended in it.  Google is not an oracle—it’s simply a computer algorithm.  But it’s also a remarkably accurate record of what’s being discussed, purchased, and consumed in the modern world.  If something’s not on Google, it’s probably not in very many other places either.  I started to wonder whether orchid oil even existed.

I needed to know, What is orchid oil, and by what other name are people smelling it?  I consulted the web pages of the American and Australian orchid societies, practicing my amateur Susan Orlean act.  But my examination of horticultural sources turned up nothing.  Perhaps, I thought, orchid oil is one of those so-called “essential oils.”  I confess to a less-than-solid understanding of the characteristics and uses of essential oil.  All I know is that after insisting on traveling home from India with four bottles of the stuff, my luggage smelled like a diaper bag that had been left in a French whore’s boudoir.  I can’t imagine that any kind of essential oil (even one made with orchids) is intended to be used in food preparation.

It was time to forget about the oil.  I decided to look for something that was simply “essential” orchid, i.e. “orchid essence.”  That led me to the not-particularly-glamorous-but-very-helpful website Baking 911.  A page on food flavorings explained that “essences are distilled with steam from fruits, spices and other plants, and used to enhance or intensify flavor,” and went on to mention that “there are thousands of essences from almond to cinnamon to coconut.”  A thorough search of essences produced by big-name companies like McCormick as well as specialty producers like King Arthur Flour turned up flavors derived from lemons, hazelnuts, and roses—but no orchids.  Of course, every flavoring manufacturer makes a vanilla extract.  Now is probably the time to address a not-immediately-obvious-but-very-relevant kink in the whole orchid-as-exotic-flavor set-up:  the vanilla plant is an orchid, therefore any food or drink prepared with vanilla is inherently “orchid flavored.”

Holding to the belief that there could be a legitimate, distinct (non-vanilla) orchid flavor, I continued on my quest.  But to obtain the floral flavoring I was after, I had to take one more detour from my culinary path.  I remembered that a former neighbor of mine who is a homeopathic healer used to work with something called Bach Flower Essences.  I went back to Google and then to another website that explained, “Dr. Edward Bach was a British physician, who began to see disease as … a physical manifestation of unhappiness, fear and worry….  Over a period of years Dr. Bach found 38 healing flowers that with the right preparation became the 38 Bach Flower Essences.  These Essences are enough to remove all negative emotional problems.”

At the risk of embarking on a botanical experiment that would deliver me to the ass-headed fate intended for a character in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I cross-referenced each of the 38 Essences with an encyclopedia of flowers, hoping to find one whose base ingredient belonged to the orchid family.  I was dismayed to learn that the Bach flowers are almost all blossoms found on evergreen trees, without a single orchid among them.  After several calls to local health food stores, I found out that there is an updated set of floral remedies made exclusively from flowers that are native to the Australian continent, called Bush Flower Essences.  Among them are Green Spider Orchid Essence, Red Helmet Orchid Essence, and several Combination Essences that incorporate orchid ingredients.  (The aphrodisiac-seeking set will surely be disappointed to learn that the Sexuality combination contains no orchid at all.)

By the time I actually made it to a health food store, it was Saturday afternoon.  This column was supposed to run on Thursday.  I was already two days behind schedule with my orchid and chocolate concoction.  A friendly shopkeeper explained that he doesn’t regularly stock the pure orchid essences but he could place a special order for one on Monday.  Not wanting to wait any longer, I settled on the Mediation Essence, a premixed combination whose ingredient list includes anglesword, boronia, bush fuchsia, bush iris, fringed violet, red lily—and green spider orchid.  The bottle explains that this tincture “assists in deepening one’s spirituality.”  When I got home, I decided to put myself through a trial of the product (which also served as a taste test).  I followed the instructions, placing seven drops of Meditation Essence under my tongue.  The stuff tasted predominantly of the alcohol used as its preservative—but with an open mind (and a brief suspension of disbelief) I picked up just a hint of an exotic, floral perfume.

Before writing this, I slowly heated a small pot of milk, whisked in a block of Scharffen Berger chocolate that I’d been saving for just the right moment, and then (with the focus of someone auditioning for the lead goofy alchemist role in a stage version of Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume) carefully added exactly one dose of the orchid-laced Meditation Essence.

Orchid Hot Chocolate
Chop or grate two ounces of couverture chocolate into small pieces.  Heat one cup of milk on low until just below the boiling point.  Remove from the heat.  Whisk in the chocolate until melted and incorporated.  Add seven drops of Green Spider Orchid Essence, Red Helmet Orchid Essence, or Mediation Essence.  Carefully whisk to combine.

This column appears on Sugar Savvy during the second and fourth Thursday of each month. Each installment will feature a recipe, and may include tips from famous chocolatiers, ancient techniques, or contemporary innovations. Please send in your questions about hot chocolate by Email.