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Ritual Chocolate ~ Costa Rica 75%

 

 

Cool Colorado chocolate makers from Boulder who share a connection with me via beer. Colorado happens to be one of the best states for awesome craft beer. So they know all the same people I do and share a love for local producers. Now to get the beer to recognize a local chocolate producer and life is all good for the folks of Boulder, Colorado. Not to mention that one of their names is Robbie Stout. How can that not be beer and chocolate destiny? 

I want to thank Anna and Robbie for sending me this chocolate to sample. I am always grateful when someone finds my blog or my taste worthy of sending samples for review. Most kind and most generous. 

About:

Ritual Chocolate is a Colorado-based chocolate manufacturing company that is developing a line of direct-trade, organic, dark chocolate bars. Through our specialized approach to roasting, milling and aging, we are able to preserve the flavors that are unique to our single estate cacao beans. We are involved with the entire chocolate making process, from the bean to the bar, because we want to ensure that our values for the highest achievable quality are present every step of the way, including the traceability of ingredients, sustainable living for the cacao farmers, and inspiring our customers to explore the world of chocolate.

 

According to the enclosed note, their process is a bit different in that they are experimenting with new techniques and that they process their chocolate in four separate grinding machines. A nib grinder, granite melanger, 3-roll mill, and a longitudinal conch. Techniques they learned from their pal, chocolate legend, Steve DeVries. 

Read about their techniques here. 

 

As the label indicates, this is batch 8 of vintage 2009 trinitario beans from Guapiles, Costa Rica. Complete with a born on date of Nov. 3, 2011. 

 

 

 

 

Costa Rica, 75% Batch 8

 

Type: Bittersweet, 75%

Bean Varietal: Trinitario

Ingredients: Cacao beans and cane sugar.

Sample Size: 2oz or 57g

 

Appearance: Nice rich mahogany color, shiny, simple non-monogrammed molding, wide-spread surface matting. 

Score: 87

Snap: Nice firm snap, light snapping sound, clean break lines.

Score: 92

Aroma: Intense blackstrap molasses, very savory aroma with licorice, berries, and tar. Dissipates very quickly though but the molasses hangs on. 

Score: 93

Taste: Robust flavors of molasses, deep roasted cacao, char, acidic, bitter, bold berries, very deep wood flavors, lingering bitterness coupled with floral flavors similar to fresh clean laundry or dryer sheets. 

Score: 92

Texture: Very smooth and creamy, medium-fast melt time.

Score: 93

 

Aside from some surface matting, the color of this chocolate was nice and rich and shiny. Simple molding but nice and firm for good snap quality.

The aroma and flavors are nice and complicated. It's very robust and assertive chocolate. It's all about the blackstrap molasses. From the huge savory aroma to the flavor. It is flavor is deeply complicated once you get through some acidity and bitterness. I feel like it's a bit imbalanced with the bitterness and acidity, but the flavors are so big and complex and the sugar is perfectly balanced, that it helps add good depth. Deep berries and an awesome woody flavor, roasted cacao flavors and char. It's sweet, bitter, savory, fruity, and mildly floral. 

This is very complicated chocolate. I liked it very much. I think there needs to be some tweaks to the acidity and charred bitterness flavors, but luckily the flavors are so big that you don't solely focus on that. 

I feel like a nice mild milk stout or an oatmeal stout that isn't too bitter or hoppy would go well with this chocolate. The milky qualities would help tone down those charred flavors without over powering the chocolate. The chocolate will dominate, but it will play together nicely. But maybe a nice huge roasted Yeti from Great Divide just might do the trick with a little roasted char taste on roasted char to cancel each other out. I had to throw in some beer suggestions here just because it's Colorado chocolate and they are surrounded by good beer everywhere.

 

Final Score: 91.4

 

  score
 B+

 

Zotter ~ Labooko Ecuador 70% & Nicaragua 80%

 

 

**Archived notes

 

Art by Andreas H. Gratze.

Lobooko Duo Ecuador 70% and Nicaragua 80%. Dueling bars from different regions of Central and South America and slightly different cacao percentages.

 

 

The description for the Ecuador bar was only in German. So, with a little help from Google, I have a rough translation of the package descriptions. 

 

Ecuador, das Kernland der Inkas, birgt noch heute große Schätze. Die Provinz El Oro- das Gold liegt im Südwesten des Landes an Pazifikküste und an der Grenze zu Peru. Hier kultivert die Kooperative Urocal den Cacao Nacional. Dieser landestypische Kakao verströmt schon beim Rösten einen unverwechselbaren Geruch und taucht unsere ganze Manufaktur in eine unglaubliche Schokoladenduftwolke ein.

Dunkle Schokolade mit 70% kakaobestandteil bietet für meine Begriffe den höchsten Schokoladengenuss. Das ist genau die richtige Menge Zucker für die feinen Kakaoaromen. Diese Süße beflügelt ohne dominant zu sein. 

Beim Walzen wird der Zucker mit dem Kakao verbunden. Dieser wird ihr Aroma also, im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes, aufgedrückt. Und zum Abschluss folgt die Meiserschaft der Schokoladenproduktion, das Conchieren. 

 

Ecuador, the heartland of the Incas, to this day a great treasure. The province of El Oro gold lies in the southwest of the country's Pacific coast and along the border with Peru. Here, the cooperative Urocal the Cacao Nacional kultivert. This typical cocoa during roasting exudes a distinctive scent and immersed in our entire manufacturing an

incredible chocolate fragrance cloud.

Dark chocolate with 70% cocoa solids offers the highest terms of my chocolate. This is exactly the right amount of sugar for the fine cocoa flavors. This sweetness inspires without being dominant.

When rolling the sugar is associated with the cocoa. This is their flavor, then, be suppressed in the truest sense of the word. And the conclusion follows Meiser the shaft of the chocolate production, the conching.

 

    

 

 

Ecuador 70%

 

Type: Bittersweet, 70%

Varietal: Nacional

Ingredients: Cocoa Mass, raw can sugar, cocoa butter, salt. 

Sample Size: 35g 

 

Appearance: Medium dark brown color, signature Labooko molding with wavy air dry patten on top. A bit of scuffed surface from rubbing. Either from the bars the way they are packaged and rubbing together or from storage or transport from London to Boston.

Score: 91

Snap: Medium-firm snap, light snapping sound, clean break lines. 

Score: 90

Aroma: Soft roasted cacao, almonds, oak wood, fruits, sweet and candy-like. Almost reminds me of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum. 

Score: 96

Taste: Sweet but deeply bitter, subdued flavors, lightly roasted cacao, oak wood, raisins, plums, very subtle hints of buttered toast and possibly some tiny hints of cinnamon, earthy, traces of black pepper. Smoky lingering aftertaste.  

Score: 93

Texture: Chewy, with a medium melt time. Medium-soft texture with a slightly creamy melt. 

Score: 91

 

This is all about the aroma. A strange candy-like aroma that smelled similar to Juicy Fruit gum. It was kind of crazy, I had to keep my nose on this thing just to be sure I was actually smelling Juicy Fruit on the aroma. It also had big oak wood on the aroma and almonds. To me the aroma was the best thing about this bar. 

Although there were some hints of rich flavors in this bar, I felt like it was very subdued on the flavor overall. This seems to be a symptom of Nacional beans. A drying effect on the palate similar to the difference in rye's versus bourbons. Similar flavors, but one is more dry and less cloying. That would be the Nacional beans in this case. But for chocolate, the drying effect is not something I care for as much. It feel like it holds back the natural flavors being drawn out. I can't be sure if this is a real phenomenon, but it's something I have noticed more than once on Nacional beans from more than one chocolate maker. 

Because of this perceived drying effect, the sugars are much more apparent as well as the bitterness from the cacao. No acidity or astringency, but a bitter "ear wax-like" taste was left covering my palate and making it hard to notice the flavors of the chocolate. This bitterness is natural in a lot of chocolates, but I don't think it would as noticeable in other bean varietals. Unless it's technique flaws, but I doubt that's the case here. 

Good snap quality and only slight surface issues with the appearance. An interesting chewey quality to the texture with a medium melt time. Creamy texture and chewy at the same time like fudge or caramel once it gets opened up a bit on the palate. 

I have a feeling that this is one of those bars that most people in general will like more than I personally do. I don't think it's bad chocolate at all, I just think Nacional beans are not my favorite. I have been saying that in other reviews, but I am a little more convinced after this bar. It's hard to write a review like this. It's personal preferences and I am trying to be as technical as I know how to be as far the review goes. And it's pretty good technically. But then trying to express my personal dislike for bars that could be holding back the true flavor potential. I need more time and understanding of Nacional beans, but now, the aroma was the best part of this bar.  

 

Final Score: 92.2

  score
B+

 

 

 

Nicaragua 80%

 

Type: Bittersweet, 80%

Bean Varietal: Unknown

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, cocoa butter, raw cane sugar, salt.

Sample Size: 35g

 

Appearance: Deep ashy brown color, monogrammed with signature air-dried ripples on top, slightly damaged surface from rubbing and sugar bloom. 

Score: 82

Snap: Nice firm and crispy snap. Clean break lines. 

Score: 92

Aroma: Char, Pepto Bismol, menthol, medicinal, earthy, buried fruits and berries. 

Score: 91

Taste: Deeply bitter, slightly astringent and tangy, sweet sugars, wood, buttered toast, char, bitter pen ink, deep berries, black pepper.

Score: 94

Texture: Slightly hard, medium-long melt time, 

Score: 89

 

I didn't take too much out of the score for the rubbing appearance. I have had Labooko bars before that were just fine so I don't know if the rubbing happened from transport. I did take points off for bloom. One bloomed and the other didn't so I don't think it was due to improper storage. I generally make notes about that if I think me or my apartment was the culprit. 

This is see-saw chocolate. Up and down up and down. It opens deeply bitter and it coats the whole palate, then the sugars come through and sort of wipe out the bitterness leaving tangy astringent notes. The bitterness brings out a charred flavor and a pen ink flavor, but the sugars let the berry flavors sand out. Stuck in the middle is a buttered toast flavor and wood flavor. 

This was fairly bitter for me. Deep lingering bitterness on the finish too. It grabs a hold of the palate and refuses to let go. It's fairly cloying that way. The sugars help let some of the other natural flavors come out, but the bitterness and astringency come back and retake over the palate. 

This is beer geek chocolate. Beer nerds who love sours and the funky flavors that they produce will like something like this. It's not as funky as Rio Carribe chocolate, but it's in that same vein of descriptors that may not sound very appealing, but really are if you like things funky and deeply complicated. 

I scored it pretty high on it's taste because these flavors were complicated and very present or apparent. Even though it's not my favorite kind of chocolate or flavors, it's something that I can see the value of and see where people would find this appealing.

 

Final Score: 89.6

  score
 B