Tasting Pacari Chocolate Covered Golden Berries

The golden berry AKA Inca berry sits inside a papery husk. Photo credit: Flapdragon.

The golden berry or Inca berry is an antioxidant rich fruit indigenous to South America that joins the ranks of more famous superfoods such as the acai berry to emerge from the Amazon.  Scientific studies suggest golden berries have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties and may help fight diabetes, cancer and aging [1, 2].  Take this exotic superfood, enrobe it in dark chocolate (already rich in antioxidants), and you have a nutritious and pallet-pleasing treat [3].  But what do golden berries taste like?

Pacari Chocolate Covered Golden Berries

Pacari organic CHOCOLATE covered golden berries

Pacari’s organic berries are harvested in Ecuador where golden berries grow wild and are also cultivated.  They then take their organic single-origin dark chocolate and coat the organic berries to make little spheres of goodness.

WHAT:  Pacari Organic Chocolate Covered Golden Berries.  57 g (2 oz). Ingredients: Cacao beans, evaporated cane juice, golden berries, cacao butter, sunflower lecithin.  USDA Certified Organic.  Dairy and soy free. May contain traces of nuts.  Kosher – Parve.

Where to buy Pacari Chocolate Covered Golden Berries Online.

WHEN:  March 18, 2012                          OVERALL RATING:  Not rated since this is not a “straight” chocolate bar.  Overall, I give it high ranks for its unique flavors and potential health benefits.

AROMA:  Pronounced raisins, grapefruit and oranges.  Light tobacco, coffee and black tea.

The inside of chocolate covered Inca berries reveals a tart, golden fruit.

INITIAL AND MIDDLE TASTES:  Caramel starts up front followed by grapefruit, raisins and red wine.  Chewing some more releases a concen- trated tart citrus flavor that’s more complex than just one single fruit.  It’s more like a melding of pineapple, orange and grapefruit with a touch of mint and tea.

FINISH:  The end is almost all golden berry with the chocolate fading away first.  There are bits of seeds (or something like it) still hanging around, but they’re not like those annoying, impervious raspberry seeds that you get stuck in your teeth – these can be easily chewed away.  The finish is clean and slightly tart.

LAST BITE:  I like these a lot because the flavors are complementary rather than competing.  Whenever I have chocolate covered espresso beans, for instance, it’s a little bit like eating cheese with butter on top – two similar flavors made from potent, aromatic roasted beans.  I still love chocolate covered espresso beans, don’t get me wrong, but what’s cool about these chocolate covered Inca berries is the contrast of tart with sweet / roast.  Maybe there’s a reason it all grows in Ecuador.

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Notes and References:

[1] New cytotoxic withanolides from Physalis peruviana Lan Y.-H., Chang F.-R., Pan M.-J., Wu C.-C., Wu S.-J., Chen S.-L., Wang S.-S., Wu M.-J., Wu Y.-C. Food Chemistry 2009 116:2 (462-469)

[2] New cytotoxic withanolides from Physalis peruviana Lan Y.-H., Chang F.-R., Pan M.-J., Wu C.-C., Wu S.-J., Chen S.-L., Wang S.-S., Wu M.-J., Wu Y.-C. Food Chemistry 2009 116:2 (462-469)

[3] These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA.  These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Dark Chocolate Review: Taza 87% Dark Bolivia

Taza's packaging is unpretentious, consistent with their authentic, keep-it-real approach to chocolate.

Although Taza Chocolate went through a brief period of experimentation with cacao sourced from Chiapas, Mexico, they have since exclusively used cacao beans from the La Red Guaconejo cooperative in Dominican Republic.  So when Taza sent me this new 87% dark chocolate bar, I was surprised to see that it was single-origin Bolivia and equally interested to learn how it compared to their other dark chocolates.  Regardless of the bean supplier, Taza uses a model they call Direct Trade where they work directly with the cacao growers and pay them fairly for their beans.  They have also employ third-party certification to confirm not only that the prices paid are fair, but provide assurances on social issues:  ”We only develop relationships with cacao producers who grow their crop in a manner that respects the rights of workers and the environment.”

Those of you already familiar with Taza know their stone-ground approach creates a rustic style of chocolate that preserves more of the bright, bold flavors of the original bean.  Could they achieve the same impressive results starting from different beans?

Tasting Taza 87% Stone Ground Organic Chocolate

Taza 87% Stone Ground Chocolate uses certified Direct Trade beans from Bolivia

WHAT:  Taza 87%  Stone Ground Dark Chocolate.  87% Cacao. 85 g (3.0 oz). Ingredients: Organic Bolivian cacao beans, organic cane sugar, organic vanilla bean.  Gluten, soy and dairy free.  USDA Certified Organic.  Kosher Pareve.

Where to buy Taza 87% Dark Chocolate Online.

WHEN:  January 28, 2012                                OVERALL RATING:  81.

AROMA:  The aroma was the best thing going.  Intense herbs, leather, coconut, cedar and tea.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS:  A quick flash of strawberry.

MIDDLE TASTE: Blueberry sitting on top of intense leather, mint, sour apple…

FINISH:  Berry turns into gripping, potent cacao that eventually calms down into notes of nutmeg, buttered toast, roasted ham, roses, malt…

TEXTURE:  Typical rustic Taza texture without the noticeable sugar granules that some of the Mexicano disks have.

LAST BITE:  One thing I like about Taza is that they keep it real.  They could make all sorts of claims around “raw chocolate” since their beans are minimally processed, but most of us already know that dark chocolate is rich in polyphenols and thought to provide a host of health benefits.  They could claim that the high cocoa content is healthier than other bars (it probably is), but they don’t.  They just provide a great honest product and let you decide what  it does for you.

For me, I found this chocolate satisfying and nourishing.  I always test new chocolates first thing in the morning so that my palate is fresh.  This day, I needed to rush out the door to my kids’ swimming lessons and forgot to eat breakfast, and I always eat breakfast.  It wasn’t until both kids were in the pool that I realized that I hadn’t eaten.  The third of a bar was enough to get me half-way through the morning.  I’m not advocating a breakfast of pure chocolate, as appealing as that may sound, but there is something nourishing about this bar.  If it’s chocolate you crave, you get a satisfying fill of intense cocoa without too much sugar.

For others, I suspect it fills a need to experience big, bold, intense chocolate.  I gave this bar a good score of 81, but if you seek extra dark chocolate, then you can call this one a 90 – 95.  I found that it had somewhat less fruit than their other bars like the 70% or 80% stone ground dark chocolates that use Dominican cacao.  Still, the extra intensity was very satisfying.  Putting the numbers aside, if you like Taza’s style, this is a good way to see what’s new at one of the few bean-to-bar chocolate makers in the USA.

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Pacari Dark Chocolate with Andean Blueberries

Pacari Andean Blueberry Dark Chocolate has plenty of blueberries to fill the bar. The color is less reddish than in this photo.

I came into this review with a preconception about chocolate plus fruit bars:    chocolate makers probably use lower-grade chocolate to blend with fruit because the flaws in the chocolate will be obscured by the flavor of the fruit.  Or, more likely, the nuances of the best chocolate would be lost among the more dominant fruit flavors.  My bias was quickly blown away upon tasting Pacari’s bar.  They’re clearly using the best of Pacari’s single-origin Ecuador dark chocolate with its soft floral and citrus notes.  But before I dive too fast into the review, let me remind you of who Pacari is, just in case you havn’t been keeping up.

Pacari Chocolate is making certified organic chocolate in Ecuador from fairly-traded beans grown in Ecuador’s most famous cacao regions.  When Santiago Peralta and Carla Barboto created Pacari, they wanted to build a business based on socially and environmentally sustainable principles to ensure that their products supported the Ecuadorian eco-system as well as local communities.  It’s no surprise that all of their products are certified organic and made from fairly traded beans.  But Pacari takes it further by taking on a number of community outreach programs including programs focused on supporting agricultural education, special needs education and portable lighting for rural areas.

WHAT:  Pacari Andean Blueberry Dark Chocolate.  65% Cacao. 50 g (1.8 oz). Ingredients:  Cacao beans, evaporated cane juice, wild blueberries, sunflower lecithin.  Dairy and soy free. May contain traces of nuts.  Kosher Parve.

Where to buy Pacari Andean Blueberry Dark Chocolate.

WHEN:  January 8, 2012

OVERALL RATING: 91.

AROMA:  Potent.  Honey, cloves, roasted ham, dark rum, leather, almond, burnt grapefruit peel.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS: Warm caramel, honey, malt.

MIDDLE TASTE:  Pie crust, grapefruit, florals, lavender, raspberry.  The chocolate and fruit somehow interact to create a satisfying wave of flavor in the middle that’s more like cherry and raspberry.

FINISH:  Tart, concentrated blueberry balanced with the sweetness of the chocolate. The very end is a nice smoke / leather note.  There’s something about the Andean blueberries that’s more concentrated and bright that allows it to harmonize well with the chocolate.

TEXTURE: Chewy with good play between dried berries and chocolate.

LAST BITE:  When I recently reviewed another fine chocolate plus fruit bar, Amedei’s Toscano Red, I concluded it was a good choice for those who want to go slightly off the beaten path.  Pacari’s Andean Blueberry Dark Chocolate bar is a great choice if you want to go far off the beaten path.  Some people may want to lounge on the grass of a Tuscan hillside (Amedei) while others want to hike through an Ecuadorian rain forest (Pacari).  Both are great, but the Pacari chocolate has more single-origin character and the the berries are more exotic with thier tart, concentrated fruit.

Pacari uses a sealed foil envelope to package their chocolate. I 'm a proponent of this approach since I feel it keeps the bars fresher so you get more of the full aroma and flavor.

The best way to enjoy the bar is to quickly chew it a few times rather than wait for it to melt. This will get the berries and chocolate together in an intimate mix – the complex interaction is fantastic.  You end up with something perceived more as raspberry than blueberry.  Most impressive of all was that the chocolate does not play second fiddle to the berries – the assertive roasted notes come through as well as the prized floral and citrus that characterizes the best Ecuadorian chocolate.

Finally, I realize that the rating of 91 puts it on par with some much more expensive chocolates that I’ve reviewed.  The rating scale is about what is enjoyable, not what is an ideally structured or the “perfect” chocolate for all people.  This was a very enjoyable chocolate and that’s not saying it’s candy.  No, this is dark chocolate with antioxidant-packed dried fruit; something I wouldn’t heasitate to enjoy daily.

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Notes:

[1] I paid for this bar myself.

Zotter Labooko Peru 60% / Peru 80% Dark Chocolate

Zotter Labooko Peru package art by Andreas H. Gratze

I’ve only recently discovered Zotter, the quirky and creative Austrian chocolate maker. Maybe I’ve been too busy tasting other bars or maybe it’s because Zotter is a bit hard to find here in the USA. Either way, I’m now furiously tasting everything that I can get my hands on. What’s captured my attention with this guy and his factory set in the village of Riegersburg, Austria? First of all, he’s doing all fair trade certified and organic bean-to-bar chocolate – an important factor for the planet and the people of the world growing cacao. What’s more, Zotter’s approach to chocolate-making is simply a whole lot of fun – from the award-winning package art to the one-of-a-kind Labooko bar sets. Labooko is two bars in one. You can enjoy and compare two bars from a different region or two bars from the same country using different beans.

Labooko Peru 80% - Peru 60% is not just the same chocolate at two different strengths

So let’s start with the Labooko Peru 60% / Peru 80%, what I simply call “Peru-Peru” because I’m too impatient to spit that all out. The 80% bar is comprised of 40% Porcelana Criollo from the Aprocap cooperative.  A rarity among cacao varieties, Porcelana grows in striking porcelain white pods and is known for its subtle and complex flavor profile. For the 60% bar, they start with a blend of Peruvian cacao from the Acrapogro Cooperative and do an unusually cool roast at only 130°C.  How this translates into the flavor of the chocolate, we’ll see.

WHAT:  Zotter Labooko Peru 80% / 60% Dark Chocolate.  35 g each bar, 70g total. Ingredients:  cocoa mass, raw cane sugar, cocoa butter, salt.   Where to buy  Zotter Labooko.

WHEN: November 27, 2011

OVERALL RATING:  85 (the 60% actually scored an 84 because it got dinged a point for aroma, but let’s call it all the same since I enjoyed the 60% bar at least as much as the 80%).

AROMA: 60%:  Very closed. Some nuts.  80%: More berry than the 60%, very light blueberry and nuts, light leather.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS: 60%:  Light blueberry 80%: Cherry, blueberry, cream cheese.

MIDDLE TASTE: 60%:  Moves quickly into a burst of subtle fruit; honey, light butterscotch, custard.  80%:  Blueberry, cashew, caramel, brown sugar.

Labooko opens like a book to reveal two bars. Prepare to do some reading - a personal note from Zotter and a description of each bar.

FINISH: 60%:  One of the most unaggressive finishes I’ve ever tasted – low acid, no bitterness.  Light pistachio, honey, malt blueberry, and strawberry.  This is where the complexity appears – moving between flavors and then fading into a super long honey finish.    80%: Creme fresh, waves of spices – clove, ginger, cinnamon and black tea.  All pretty subtle with a bit less fruit than the 60%.

TEXTURE:  60%:  Melts slowly and smoothly.  80%: Similar – butter smooth.

LAST BITE:   If this Labooko was just two bars of the same cacao made the same way, one with more sugar than the other, that wouldn’t be very interesting. Instead Zotter goes to the trouble of sourcing two different cacaos and roasts and conches them to bring out their separate potentials.  Sure, there are some clear similarities in the flavors, but there is no doubt you can easily distinguish the two.

I fully expected to like the 80% better since I prefer higher cacao chocolate, but the 60% brought on a surprise ending with all that complexity suddenly appearing after being so closed at the start.  It gets my vote as #1.  The low roasting of the 60% beans translates into more fruit, something I prefer.  The 80% is one of those paradoxical bars, like Pralus Le  100%, that has high cacao, but subtle flavors owed to the use of Porcelana Criollo.  If you are into high-cocoa bars, but don’t want to get hit with astringent bitterness, the 80% is for hits the mark – a soft and round delicacy that you would expect from Porcelana.

Taza Ups the Ante: Orange vs. Ginger Organic Dark Chocolate

New flavors from Taza – Orange and Ginger Organic Dark Chocolate

I’ve been searching for ginger-flavored chocolate that goes beyond the familiar Chocolove commonly found at upscale grocery stores and bookshops.  What do I have against Chocolove?  After all, when I conduct tastings in my chocolate class, Chocolove’s Crystallized Ginger in Dark Chocolate often rises up as a crowd a favorite.  Well, Chocolove uses Belgian couveture chocolate and I find much, but not all, Belgian couveture is overworked to the point of moving a bit too far down the road towards tastelessness.

The other American masters at melting couveture and blending with flavors – Vosges Chocolate – simply don’t have a ginger bar despite their prolific assortment of flavors.  Don’t get me wrong, you can get good results melting couveture (chocolate made in someone else’s factory and bought in bulk) into bars, but it’s got to be great couveture [1].  In contrast, Taza’s chocolate is organic and made bean-to-bar using a direct trade model of working with cacao farmers.  That’s the direction that I’d like to see things go – more control of the chocolate making though involvement in all parts of the process and more sustainable practices in an industry that has had a so-so track record over the last century.

The color of the bars is nearly the same, but Taza seems to be investing in new molds with shallower letters (on top) that are easier to fill

When Taza introduced their new Stone Ground Mexicano flavors earlier this year, two bars that leaped out from the new offering were the Orange Chocolate Mexicano and the Ginger Chocolate Mexicano.  Those of you that have been following Taza know that the Mexicano disks were originally created with 55% cacao.  What you may not know is that they started this way so that people could enjoy them two ways: simply nibbling on the bars or mashing them up into a rich drinking chocolate – just like the tradition of solid bars made in parts of Europe and Latin America.

But the new bars depart from that original path by sporting a higher cacao content of 70%.  I asked Taza co-founder, Larry Slotnick, about the new direction and he explained:  ”What became clear with the success of the mexicano discs was that folks were eating these discs much more frequently than melting them into a chocolate beverage. They found the chocolate flavor just so robust due to the quality of the cacao we use and the minimal refining, that even traditional ‘dark chocolate’ consumers were really wowed by the intensity.  Thus, we decided to expand the line with a tweak of the cacao percentage to give a wide swath of ‘dark chocolate’ eaters the minimum cacao percentage they often look for ….”  Placing myself squarely in this swath, I needed to give these new bars a taste.

Taza Organic Dark Chocolate Review

WHAT:  Taza Ginger Chocolate Mexicano.  70% Cacao. (2.7oz). Ingredients: Organic roasted cacao beans, organic cane sugar, organic ginger powder.   Taza Orange Chocolate Mexicano.  70% Cacao. (2.7oz).  ingredients: Organic roasted cacao beans, organic cane sugar, organic orange oil.

Where to buy Taza Organic Dark Chocolate.

WHEN: October 10, 2011

OVERALL RATING: Ginger: 82.  Orange: 85.

AROMA:  Ginger:  strawberry and, um, ginger.  Orange: tobacco, pine honeysuckle.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS:  Ginger:  strawberry, grass, herbals.  Orange: light citrus.

MIDDLE TASTE: Ginger: ginger, berry, citrus  Orange: clean orange – not sticky cream-sickle sweet, but crisp and clear.  Some cedar and berry.

FINISH:  Ginger: lemongrass, ginger.  The finish is the best part where the chocolate and ginger stop competing and come into balance.   Orange: citrus and cacao acid come into focus at the end.  Otherwise, the orange  is somewhat hidden by the chocolate until now.  Some grassy mushroom at the very end.  The ginger is a bit cleaner in the finish but you could say the orange has more complexity.

TEXTURE:  Both have the trademark Taza rustic texture that comes from their traditional stone ground method.

LAST BITE:  As far as the ginger bar goes, it’s not a substitute for Chocolove.  Which is only saying these are completely different bars with completely different styles.   The ginger bar get’s points for a clean finish and will appeal to those who enjoy more herbal notes.

For the orange bar, I was a little surprised by how light-handed they are with the orange flavor as if they wanted to avoid creating a clumsy caricature of a flavored bar.  I guess it’s all about the chocolate in the end and you don’t want to cover up something so good.  The verdict?  I liked the orange bar a tad more for the perception of complexity and balance of flavor, but I would place both in my top three favorite Taza mexicanos.

Notes:

[1] Couveture chocolate is normally used to prepare other confections such as truffles, bonbons and the like.  However, companies that are making blended bars remelt other people’s couveture and mold the new mixture into bars.  This chocolate often comes from Belgium since it’s the home of a few very large producers of couvture.  For more, see Koko Lingo.

[2] I paid for this chocolate myself.

Japanese Premium Dark Chocolate – Meiji The Premium Single

The Chocolate is molded with precision into deep squares

I’m back in Tokyo this week and had chance to pick up some real Japanese chocolate.  It seems that the trend towards premium and single-origin chocolate has finally reached Japan’s shores.  Meiji Milk Company has been around for almost 100  years and makes various inexpensive chocolate bars that can be found in the ubiquitous Seven-Elevens and Lawsons stores throughout the country.  Now, for the first time, I’ve come across a Japanese-made dark chocolate bar that uses single-origin beans and is marketed as a “premium” chocolate.

The box explains single-origin chocolate

Can the Japanese really make great chocolate bars?  After all, the food of the gods has its origins in Mesoamerica and was first transformed into drinking chocolate and what you would recognize as chocolate bars in Europe.  In fact, chocolate making seems to be far more intertwined with European culture which boasts easily over one hundred makers of bars alone – from Amedei to Zotter, never mind truffles and all the rest.  Europe has more practice and more history with refined chocolate than anyone else in the world. So, can a Japanese company really learn how to make a world class chocolate bar?

I will answer my own, intentionally naïve, question.  Yes, in my estimation, the Japanese are capable of making pretty much any fine or gourmet food you can think of.  When I lived in Japan with my family, we were delighted to hear that Tokyo had been deemed by Michelin to be “… a shining star in the world of cuisine[2].”  It’s an international city on par with any other and clearly people here get the concept and techniques behind fine food.

One of my favorite comfort foods when we lived here was the chocolate croissant.  When the walls of our tiny apartment started to close in, I would lead my then three-year-old son by the hand down to street level and around the corner to a delightful little bakery that might as well have been in New York or Paris.  The perfect little airy, buttery pastries made a lasting impression on both of us.  These are one of the few things my son can still remember from his time in Tokyo:   the “chocolate ‘a-sants.”

So, I have no doubt that Japan is capable of producing great chocolate, but Meiji Milk company?  Let’s taste some and see.

Dark chocolate from Dominica cacao beans

WHAT:   Meiji The Premium Single Dark Chocolate – Dominica.  61% Cacao. 58g. Ingredients: Cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, trehalose emulsifier (soy lecithin, sucrose esters of fatty acids), artificial flavor.

Where to buy in USA: H-Mart Stores.

WHEN: September 25, 2011

OVERALL RATING:  73

AROMA:  Heavy roast, smoked ham, roasted fig, green beans, vanillin.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS:  Malt.  It takes a while to open up, so not much else initially.

MIDDLE TASTE: Raspberry, oak, pine, cacao fruit.  I have to give them some credit for bringing out a bit of cacao fruit.

FINISH:  Cedar, caramel, wax beans.  Simple, not complex, but gets a few points for a long finish.

TEXTURE: A little dull, but melts fine.

LAST BITE:  Sorry guys, this is not a great bar.  Meiji is sort of the Hershey’s of Japan, so what can we expect?  Well premium should be premium, but to be fair and compare to something clearly not premium, I bought some “garden variety” Meiji chocolate from the closest Lawsons.  I found a pack of little dark chocolate squares called Meiji Black.  In Japan, they seem to like products with the simple designation: “Black”– noting some pure extreme or trying to draw in a masculine audience like the popular chewing gum called Black Black.

Meiji Black is their basic dark chocolate

Well, the Meiji Black was as bad as the Hershey’s we all know – with an unnatural aroma of church-lady perfume and a flavor profile that boasts notes of salad oil, tomatoes, vanilla ice cream and marshmallow.  When you compare The Premium Single to that, then yes, these guys have made an honest effort, but they have a way to go yet.  Here’s my advice to Meiji:  you’re on the right track, but please get rid of all the artificial flavors – probably vanillin – and pay some closer attention to fermentation and roasting and you will have something closer to world class.  I’ve read that the quality of beans from the Commonwealth of Dominica can be excellent, so I don’t think there is anything wrong with the bean source.  You just need to work out some bugs the way you know best – practice, refine, purify, repeat.

Notes:

[1] I paid for these bars myself.

[2] Some doubted the validity of Michelin’s praise, but they did award 3 French restaurants their highest honor of 3-stars.

[3] Meiji is pronounced “may gee.”  Well, technically, “may ee gee” spoken quickly as “may gee.”

Amano Morobe Dark Chocolate Review

Amano Morobe shows a slightly reddish color

Leave it to Amano Artisan Chocolate to uncover a crop of superior cacao beans from far-off reaches of the planet and surprise us, yet again, with another unique dark chocolate.  For their newest bar, Morobe, they bring back beans from the South Pacific – Papua New Guinea to exact.  Although it’s only a few hundred miles north of Australia, New Guinea doesn’t resemble the more arid and flat landscape of its gigantic southern neighbor [1]. Rather, New Guinea is lush with volcanic soil, ample rainfall and vibrant jungles thanks to Mt. Wilhelm,the highest point in Oceania.  This is a place where cacao trees can thrive.

I was disappointed when Amano had discontinued their Jembrana single-origin Bali Dark Chocolate with its earthy, peaty aroma and fruit / floral notes, but pleased to see that they have quickly replaced it with something equally exotic.  Let’s see if Morobe lives up to its predecessor.

Single Origin Papua New Guinea Dark Chocolate

Amano Morobe dark chocolate package art

WHAT:  Amano Morobe Dark Chocolate.  70% Cacao. 56 g (2 oz). Ingredients: Cocoa beans, Pure cane sugar, Cocoa butter, Whole vanilla beans.  Where to buy Amano Morobe Dark Chocolate.

WHEN: August 7, 2011

OVERALL RATING:  90.

AROMA:  Berry tart, blackberry cobbler, chocolate croissant, ham.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS:  There is a pronounced and immediate note of citrus / lime.

MIDDLE TASTE: Orange, cranberry, grapefruit, butterscotch, lime.

FINISH: An ultra clean finish fades into a buttery warmth.  No bitter notes or acid on finish, just a smooth lingering ride.

TEXTURE:  Amano smooth.

LAST BITE:  Leave it to Amano to make something that is both delightful and dumbfounding.  I’ve never experienced such clear citrus notes in a chocolate.  This is truly unique stuff.   The note of lime seemed impossibly clear appearing as soon as the chocolate hit my tongue and hanging on well into the bitter-less finish.

Whenever I come across a chocolate that stumps me (in the sense that I can’t believe what I am tasting), I ask my wife, Genevieve to render an opinion.  She eats every chocolate that I test, of course, but I usually don’t ask her to work too hard at it by doing a serous review.   With no input from me, she came back with “…plum, raspberry, lime. The texture is remarkable!”  Taking my investigation deeper, I contacted Amano to find out what bean variety they use for this chocolate.  The answer came back: “it’s proprietary information.”  No harm, no foul, Amano.  If that’s what it takes to keep making great chocolate, I’m happy to keep it a mystery.

Notes:

[1] Papua New Guinea is an independent nation that forms the eastern half of New Guinea.

[2] This bar was a sample sent to me by the good folk at Amano Artisan Chocolate.

Francois Pralus Cuba Dark Chocolate Review

Pralus Cuba Dark Chocolate 75%

I’ve had the pleasure to taste so much superb chocolate from the Caribbean – Taza’s Stone Ground 80% from Dominican Republic beans, Theo’s single-origin Costa Rica, Grenada Chocolate Company’s 71% dark chocolate, and Valrhona Gran Couva from Trinidad to name a few.  So how is it that when thinking about chocolate, most of us have entirely forgotten about Cuba, the largest and most populous island nation in the Caribbean?  Hiding on this 745-mile-long island, somewhere among the sugar cane fields and coffee plantations and far from the cafes, bars and baroque architecture of Havana, are cacao farms producing brilliant single-origin trinitario beans.

I know this only because Francois Pralus has not forgotten about Cuba. One way or another, he’s secured a relationship with cacao growers and brought sacks of beans back to Roannes, France to do what he does best – make bean-to-bar chocolate.

With the southern edge of the island just barely dipping its toe into the “cocoa belt” at 19° 49’ north of the equator, Cuba may not boast the most hospitable climate to grow cacao, but sometimes wonderful things emerge from hardship.  It’s yet to be entirely seen what will emerge from Cuba’s political and economic hardships, but as far as Cuban cacao, I’ve got some answers thanks to Pralus’ imagination[1].

Single-Origin Cuba Dark Chocolate

WHAT:  Francois Pralus Cuba Single-origin Dark Chocolate.  75% Cacao. 100g. Ingredients: cocoa, sugar, pure cocoa butter, non-GMO soy lecithin. May contain traces of nuts or milk.  Where to buy Francois Pralus Cuba Dark Chocolate.  

WHEN: July 3, 2011

OVERALL RATING:  86.

AROMA:  Blueberry, butter, vanilla (none added).

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS:  Butter, blueberry.

MIDDLE TASTE:  liquorice, cashews, macadamia, light black pepper and light smoked ham.

FINISH:  Honeydew melon, cream, cinnamon, molasses, a distinct wave of buttered sour-dough bread, and a long, complex herbal note.  After one of the cleanest, long finishes I’ve ever tasted, there’s a nice quiet ending.  Nothing bitter. Ever.

TEXTURE:  Creamy and soft.  Remember, I tasted this chocolate  in July and as you can see by the photo, the chocolate began to melt a bit, but was in much better shape during my early morning tasting.

LAST BITE:   This bar is worth discovering for its creamy nutty character and classic complexity.  If you’re looking for bold fruit, there are bars that do that better, but Pralus compromises a bit on fruit for something that is never bitter and always soft and voluptuous on the tongue.

If you want to learn about complexity, then this bar offers a delicious lesson.  Complexity is not just a mixture of flavors within a dark chocolate.  Rather, complexity is waves or peaks of different flavors that come at different times and often well into the finish.  I gave this bar the most points for the finish and texture and the least for the somewhat closed aroma.   It’s worth a try as a lesson in complexity or to explore an obscure cacao growing region.

Notes:

[1] I don’t pretend to understand the political complexities of Cuban agriculture and export.  My view on these things is simple – the people of a country are separate from its government.  As much as farmers are real people trying to make a living, I’m  happy to support them, despite their captivity or complicity in an archaic social-governmental system.

[2] I paid for this bar myself.

Amedei Venezuela Single Origin Cru Chocolate

Amedei tells their story on the inside of the Venezuela Chocolate wrapper - in Italian...and English.

As far as I can tell, there hasn’t been an online review of Amedei Venezuela chocolate since 2005 and at that time it was only available as 5 g tasting squares.   Knowing that chocolate makers can tweak their methods over time and seasonal weather patterns can affect the beans, it seems like we are overdue to taste this bar.  I’m happy to grab a full 50 g bar now and see what’s new with this dark chocolate.

Amedei’s “I Cru” series of chocolates each use cacao beans from a different region and plantation.  The crus are created to express the unique climate and conditions in one small area as well as the farmer’s efforts to preserve a genetic lineage in the cacao beans going back for generations.  In the Venezuela Cru, the beans are technically of the trinitario variety, but Amedei explains they have a genetic make-up that is more than 85% criollo.  Amedei uses this combination of location and premium beans to create a unique and satisfying chocolate.

WHAT:  Amedei Venezuela Single Origin Cru Chocolate.  70% Cacao. 50 g.  Ingredients: cocoa mass, cane sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla. May contain traces of hazelnut, almond, pistachio, walnut, milk. Where to buy Amedei Venezuela.

WHEN: February 13, 2011

OVERALL RATING:  89.

AROMA:  Honey, banana, tea, angel food cake, vanilla.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS:  Starts with cinnamon, cafe-au-lait and moves quickly into all the rest.

MIDDLE TASTE:  Cafe-au-lait, coffee, a hint of blueberry, green apple.  Very pleasant with slight to moderate complexity.

FINISH:  Grapefruit, clean acidity, orange blossom, fades to little tinge of cinnamon and nutmeg.  Most of the floral notes show up here.

TEXTURE:  Ultrafine and smooth.

LAST BITE: Amedei has risen quickly to high stature in the chocolate world, propelled, in part, by winning the “Golden Bean” award for Amedei 9.  The Golden Bean  goes to the best bean-to-bar chocolate at the World Chocolate Awards, London.  This doesn’t mean that all of their bars are fantastic, but there’s no doubt that they’re of consistently high quality and among the best in the world.  For some people, many of Amedei’s bars are too delicate and balanced – like a sort of a Merlot of chocolate – pleasing to everyone, offending no one, but not taking any risks.

I don’t see a big problem with a chocolate that everyone likes, but more importantly, we should recognize the challenge and culinary risk-taking Amedei embraces when working with single origin beans. They don’t have the luxury of using a blend of different beans to balance the flavors as in Amedei 9.  Instead, the beans from one region or plantation must be tamed by experimentation and hard work – like turning a wild horse into a gentle yet powerful, beautiful creature anyone can ride.  Pleasing to everyone?  I hope so.

Notes:

[1] The term “Cru” is another word borrowed from the wine world.  For French wine it’s used to designate a specific growth place such as one plantation or winery.  This is a more narrow designation than say, Bordeaux A.O.C., where the grapes are allowed to come from anywhere in the region including many different vineyards.  Cru wines, on the other hand, are supposed to express the terroir of that single vineyard.

[2] I paid for this bar myself.

Amano Montanya Dark Chocolate Review

Amano Montanya chocolate sits atop the bar wrapper - now completely empty

I kicked this year off by reviewing an exceptional limited edition bar –  Amano   Cuyagua.  Now it’s about time to get back into some chocolate reviews with bar that has an equally great reputation – Amano Montanya.  Both chocolates use rare cacao beans  from Venezuela, a place that has achieved the reputation of producing the world’s best beans.  While beans from Cuyaqua are found close to the sea, Montanya’s beans must be brought out of the northern mountains on horseback.

Although difficult to access, these secluded cacao farms may have serendipitously benefited from their isolation by preserving precious cacao of the criollo variety.  It’s thought that cacao tree grafts from the area around Ocumare were long ago brought up to these mountains, helping to preserve a species of cacao that now may have become more diluted back near the city of Ocumare.  It’s in the remote northern mountains that Amano Artisan Chocolate found these special beans and was the first to turn them into a limited edition dark chocolate bar.

For an introduction to Amano, see this earlier  chocolate review on Amano’s single-origin Bali chocolate, Jembrana.

 

WHAT:  Amano Montanya Single-origin Venezuela Dark Chocolate.  70% Cacao. 56g.  Ingredients: Cacao beans, pure cane sugar, cocoa butter, whole vanilla beans.  Kosher Dairy. Where to buy Amano Montanya Dark Chocolate.

 

 

 

WHEN:  May 1, 2011

OVERALL RATING: 90.

AROMA: Raisins, dried fruit, herbal, forest, black pepper, some leather.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS: Apple, raisins, dates.

MIDDLE TASTE:  Cantaloupe, a burst of smoked ham, apricots, apple running through all of it with a touch of citrus.  The middle is definitely the most fun.

FINISH:  Apricot, cinnamon, caramel, chocolate milk, ending in green banana.

TEXTURE: More or less the fine smoothness that I’ve come to expect from Amano.

LAST BITE – What’s cool about the complexity of Amano’s chocolate is that you can taste it again days later and get a glimpse of something different – new dimensions. There are chocolates that I really enjoy like Grenada Chocolate Company’s 71% Dark Chocolate that are more monochromatic.  These chocolates have their place, but Amano’s Montanya offers a different experience – one of nuance and subtly.

If I had to choose between Cuyaqua and Montanya (good thing I don’t), I’d have to give a the edge to Cuyaqua for it’s added complexity, elusiveness and a touch more smoothness on the texture, but we all know that it’s not so simple.  The judges at the Academy of chocolate, London, may disagree with me since they awarded Amano Montanya the Silver Medal for best dark chocolate.  I have to wonder if they had tasted the Cuyagua at that competition or not.  Either way, both bars are among the best in the world and well worth a try.