What's your job? Peter Higgins, chocolate scientist

To say Peter Higgins has a sweet tooth is an understatement. Chocoholic might be more like it. As a chocolate scientist at Purdys Chocolatier, he eats as many as 10 pieces a day, testing and tasting alongside the master chocolatier to create the delicious treats.

That's because the entire process is part science, part art, says Higgins, who is also president of the privately-held company. In order to get the right recipe chocolate is not to be broken, bitten into and devoured too quickly, but rather savoured slowly and done over and over again.

Higgins, who studied food sciences at the University of British Columbia, started experimenting with the mixing of food and wine in the province's Okanagan region. He eventually landed a job on the production floor at Vancouver-based Purdys in the late 1990s and has remained a fixture ever since.

The company, which has shops in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario, is known for its signature purple and gold logo that is extra popular during times like Valentine's Day. While Purdys is synonymous with tasty confectionery like their peanut butter bar, Sweet Georgia Browns and Hedgehogs, lately Higgins has had a hand in creating exotic items that pair Himalayan pink salt and caramels to favourable reviews, overall the biggest reward in what Higgins describes as a dream job.

Is chocolate really an aphrodisiac?
There are thousands of compounds that make up chocolate. One is theobromine. It helps release serotonin, which is a feel good response in our brain.

Is there a way of eating chocolate that makes it taste even better?
Absolutely. There's a real science. Tasting is about 80 or 85 percent through your olfactory system. It's a five sense experience. When you snap it, if it's properly tempered it should melt on your fingers. You let it dissolve in your mouth, you sense the textures, but you let all that go through your olfactory system. Close your eyes then sense the initial taste, the middle taste and then the lingering taste.

How did you get into this?
I was the youngest of five kids and it was an event when my dad made fudge. We all gathered together. We put the ingredients together. I've always had a sweet tooth. I love to understand how things are put together.

And why food sciences specifically?
I was going to go into medicine to be a doctor, but realized that amount of work and studying wasn't for me. I really wanted to do some applied sciences. It really goes back to my dad. He worked in the food industry at Nabisco and he said there's technical applications of science in the food industry. That's really what made me go and research food sciences.

Why the focus on chocolate?
Chocolate itself is so complex, never mind all the confections and how those pieces combine with it. One aspect I love about it is that it comes from agriculture and then there's all the technical components like the chemical makeup.

Why do you like your job?
You get to the office and you're pretty much tasting chocolate from the start of the day to the end of the day. We run the taste tests, put all the results together, look at the analysis on the different technical specifics of chocolate, whether it's water activity or viscosity. You also get to put your marketing hat on, the costing hat--what do the ingredients cost and where do they come from--you get involved by putting your purchasing hat on. It's very dynamic.

What kind of knowledge do you need for this job, and what's the market like?
It's a combination of chemistry and microbiology, and you certainly have to have some biology background to understand how things grow because there's a lot of agriculture to it. There's a lot of science jobs inside food companies, but there's not as many chocolate companies as there are food companies.

What's the range of pay?
The best way to put it is you get to eat as much chocolate as you want.

Is there a downside to the job?
I know you want something here, but I love what I do from the moment I get up to the moment I go to bed. I really do have a dream job.

Back to chocolate, is there anything you should eat with chocolate?
It depends on the chocolate itself. There is a right time to eat chocolate, though there's some debate about this. I think absolutely the best time to eat chocolate is between 10 and 11 in the morning. That's assuming you've eaten breakfast at a normal time. You don't want to have a big cup of coffee before you eat chocolate because that can overwhelm your taste buds and senses. If you're drinking water you don't want it to be cold or else you won't get proper evaporation. And you don't want it to be too close to lunch because you'll be hungry and everything tastes great.

What's the secret to putting together great tasting chocolate?
The two main ingredients in cocoa are the cocoa mass and the cocoa butter. The cocoa butter actually has five crystal structures inside it. There's only one of those that is stable. Think of it as Lego blocks and when the Lego is firm and tight. You need to form a process called temper, and temper is a series heating and cooling the chocolate to ensure the right crystal structure is available.

How do you know when it's right?
When you get that correct crystal structure inside cocoa butter that's when you have that proper snap, that shine, that smooth texture when you bite into it. If you don't have it right, you're going to get chocolate that shatters, that is dull looking and doesn't have the right texture when it melts in your mouth.

Is there such a thing as healthy chocolate?
There are certain chocolates that have higher cocoa content that have higher antioxidants. I think all chocolate is healthy. It makes you feel great. We all need a treat. But it comes down to energy in and energy out. I eat a lot of chocolate, but so do a lot of people who work at Purdys. But I also go for a run three times a week and I play hockey.

*Interview has been edited and condensed