Picked up in Brooklyn with the advice that this is extremely good good chocolate. A brewer gave me this chocolate, and once I smelled it, I now know why. More of that later when I get to the aroma.
Once again, very excited to have a website with good information about the cocoa and it's origins. A lot of cutting and pasting but definitely worth the read.
Corallo spent years growing coffee in the middle of the Congo jungle, and through that experience cultivated his exceptional talent for producing agricultural excellence in the most difficult of growing conditions.
Corallo has spent nearly a decade on the tiny African island of Principe converting the abandoned Terreiro Velho plantation that once grew superb cacao into a world-class estate producing cacao unlike any other. The harvested cacao is then transported to the neighboring island of Sao Tome where it is fermented, dried and sorted, where only the finest cacao moves on to being crafted into chocolate. Through careful study and meticulous experimentation, Corallo personally developed innovative techniques that transform his cacao into unforgettable chocolate.
Origins
The first historically documented emigration of the cacao plant was to the island of Príncipe in 1822 by order of the Portuguese King Dom Joao VI.
Realising that Portugal would soon lose its immense colony of Brazil (which happened in 1822), the King sought to save part of the income that Portugal derived from the famous cacao plants of the Bahia region by transporting a good number to another of Portugal’s colonies: the peaceful São Tomé e Príncipe. It could not have been easy to keep the delicate young plants alive during the long voyage from Bahia to Príncipe, and the effort shows how important that mission was. By the 1900s this microscopic archipelago was the world’s biggest cacao producer, something not even King Dom Joao VI could have hoped for. Over the last 50 years the old varieties of cacao were replaced by modern hybrids that were more productive, as happened to coffee bushes and so many other fruits. But tiny Príncipe was forgotten and the precious original cacao somehow managed to survive there.
The Plantation
We found the old cacao plants on Principe Island, at Terreiro Velho plantation, scattered throughout the invading forest. They had naturally reproduced through the years -- thanks to monkeys. With years of passionate work, we cleared the rainforest ground, replanted the shade trees that had been cut down for wood, and started seeding the original plants.
By giving them air and just the right amount of light, the old plants gained new vigour, producing healthy and abundant fruit, as if thanking us for our work. The perfume from their pulp, ever more intense and fresher, made us jump for joy.
I visited other plantations to see their fermentation process but none made me very happy. They were not transforming the perfume; in fact, it was being eliminated. Through years of testing we developed a natural fermentation method where we move from one perfume to another - just what I wanted.
Now it was time to dry all the cacao that we had worked so hard on. We had to find the exact thermal curve and the most practical way to reach it. After tests, designs and results that weren't successful, we finally got it right.
he cacao came out of the dryers but, with the humidity in Sao Tome & Principe, we found it didn't stay dry for long. So there was no alternative but to dehumidify the warehouse and the work area. In the rainy season we have to be especially vigilant.
Once the beans are bagged, we put them onto small boats to travel the 90 ocean miles from Principe to Sao Tome.
So in a nut shell they restored and rebuilt an abandoned plantation in Principe, they then send the beans to Sao Tome for fermentation They tweaked and developed their own methods of fermentation.
Bean to bar
Some 20 hours after leaving Principe, the cacao arrives in Sao Tome and Arlindo do Espirito Santo, who is in charge of our chocolate laboratory, is the first person to jump on board before unloading.
He checks all the bags to make sure none have broken open or got wet. It is very important to do this before offloading because if even one bag got slightly wet we need to understand why and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Only after Mr. Arlindo clears the load does the offload onto the dock start.
Bags of 30 kilos each work best for us because they pass easily from hand to hand from start to finish on the journey from Terreiro Velho to our staging area on the Nova Moca plantation without ever touching the ground.
The Nova Moca team is ready to receive the beans. One by one the bags are opened, checked, re-weighed, organised by harvest date and placed in our dehumidified storage area.
At this point, with the dried cacao beans at Nova Moca, we can easily say that 60 percent of our work is done, as we already have the essentials for an extraordinary chocolate.
Before roasting, our cacao beans are selected by hand. Empty or defective beans are removed. The beans are now clean and checked. For a uniform roasting process, we make sure that beans of similar sizes are roasted together, with the same amount of heat and time, so the beans will release their best flavour.
Roasting is, without a doubt, a risky operation, because it is during this phase that the chocolate’s aroma is developed, and where even small errors in terms of time or temperature can ruin all the work done up to now. To get the best result we need the ideal thermal curve. We need to know when to interrupt the roasting, neither a second too soon nor too late because this is when the chocolate’s aromas are developed to their fullest. From 1980 to 1995 we roasted a lot of coffee in Zaire but very little cacao. We have a lengthy and well-rounded experience with a wide range of roasting machines and many species and varieties of coffee. The cacao was another matter altogether.
When you roast coffee, a color change is one of the parameters that tip you off as to timing. But with cacao, which must be roasted still covered in its integument, the colour doesn’t change, so there is no tip-off.
Throughout each roasting tests we gathered a huge amount of data regarding time and temperature. Our notes filled whole binders.
A low temperature and a long roasting time "take away happiness from the cacao". If temperatures are just a little too high or the time just a moment too short it will yield a rough flavour. Little by little we got there. At first, 95 percent of our efforts were either too short or too long. But that 5 percent that were just right led us to realize that any shortcoming was due to our own fault. Most roasted cacao tastes like nuts or burnt. Thanks to the extraordinary quality of our cacao, we gradually found that "magic second" that led us to the perfect roasting down to a fraction of a second. We finally succeeded!
Cacao beans are covered by a woody tegument. Underneath lies a small film called endosperm. Inside this endosperm there is a hard and bitter wild root.
From our chocolate nibs it might seem that the next phase is very brief, but that’s not the case. Cacao is a product that is alive, that wants to be known and cared for, and that likes to remind you of this by making you pay for even a moment’s distraction. At every different point in the refining, the taste and intensity change in a non-linear manner, with continuous and diverse sensations. Refining is another risky phase. We are now close to the 100 percent perfection that we dream of, the basis of all our chocolate, 100 percent perfection from the moment the cacao is picked off the tree until it reaches you.
I apologize for all the cutting and pasting, but there is a lot of good information for a novice chocolate fan. It was worth repeating. Hopefully someone out there is learning something from this blog.
Type: Bittersweet
Bean Varietal: Hybrid, wild beans
Ingredients: Cocoa, sugar, cocoa butter, 70% minimum cocoa.
Sample Size: 50g or 1.76oz
Appearance: Two tablets with no molding or monograms. Both tablets broken, slightly ashy, and cracked.
Score: 71
Snap: Soft, dull thud, asymmetrical break lines due to no molding,
Score: 73
Aroma: Huge aroma! Roasted cocoa, bitter, chocolate coffee stout, roasted coffee, fresh coffee grinds, burnt toast, tar.
Score: 99
Taste: Sweet, inky, tar notes, bitter, a bright green citrus hit of oranges and pine needles that seems to permeate but doesn't last long over the bitter roasted coffee flavors, cereal grains on the finish.
Score: 94
Texture: A little grainy, soft, soft nibs with a slight crunchy texture.
Score: 89
This one of those chocolates where the technical marks do not do it justice. The aroma on this chocolate has one of the most robust armoas I have ever smelled on a bar of chocolate. It smells like I poured a massive stout in a pint glass. A huge robust stout like Espresso Oak Aged Yeti from Great Divide. It's a wonderful smell. Huge coffee and roasted cocoa, bitter notes of burnt toast and tar, and fresh ground coffee beans. This is beer lovers chocolate right here.
The taste is quite unique as well. The same aroma flavors of coffee and roasted cocoa, but with a fantastic hit of oranges and pine needs and finished with cereal grains. It's also a lot sweeter than I would have expected. I expected all bitterness.
This is wonderful chocolate, but unfortunately it's appearance and snap quality takes it's average way down. I still encourage anyone to pick this up, cut the top off the package and just hold it to your nose and breathe away. Then taste it after you have finally come to terms with this fabulous aroma.
Final Score: 85.2
B-
Recent Comments