Michel Cluizel ~ 1er Cru de Plantation "Maralumi"

Michel Cluizel 1er Cru de Plantation "Maralumi."

I bought this in San Fransico at CocoaBella in the SOMA district. I was visiting San Francisco for a food conference and made it a point to pick up some chocolate before I left. Sadly, I didn't have time to do the chocolate tours of San Francisco and do tours of Sharffen Berger or Ghirardelli. But leaving with French chocolate I haven't had before, more than made up for it.

Michel Cluizel has been widely regarded as one of the world's finest chocolatiers. Hailing from the Normandy region of France, he opened his first shop in 1981 in Paris. He began his journey with chocolate in 1947 Normandy, France with his parents who were pastry chefs beginning their own chocolate creations. 

There is a Michel Cluizel: you can see him, with an ebullient smile, on his corporate website. In 1947 his parents, pastry chefs Marc and Marcelle Cluizel, decided to venture into the world of fine chocolate. Fascinated by the chocolate business, Michel became an apprentice and has been making fine chocolates—which soon became exceptional chocolates—since 1948. Today, assisted by his four adult children, the chocolate shop that began in a small town in Normandy is now a global enterprise. More than 6,000 chocolatiers and patissiers use his couverture* and sell his chocolates. Yet, while many shops sell Cluizel products, there are only two Cluizel stores: the original, on the Rue Saint Honoré in Paris, and, since a year ago, a store in New York City.

[Via: Gourmet Food - Michel Cluizel Chocolate - The World's Best Chocolate - Product Review - THE NIBBLE Gourmet Food Magazine  Karen Hochman and Peter Rot 2006]

Cluizel sets high standards for his products.

In 1999, after one and a half years of research, Michel Cluizel prohibited soya lecithin, a natural emulsifier, from all his chocolates. Soya lecithin was in fact introduced to chocolate manufacture in 1957 and is commonly used to facilitate the mixing of chocolate ingredients. As a known perfectionist, Michel Cluizel already used the purest ingredients in his chocolates, cane sugar (not beet sugar) and Bourbon vanilla bean (not extract or vanillin) so the aim to purify his chocolates further by not including this particular ingredient was a step closer to perfection. Real chocolate in its finest and purest form.

[Via: The Chocolate Traveller]

Purest form of chocolate and highest standards of production, but do not scoff or turn your nose away from those who do use soy lecithin. It's very common in chocolate making. The absence of soy lecithin is one way to guarantee no genetically modified ingredients and reduce the presence of added allergens.

Soy lecithin is used in conventional chocolate to replace all or part of the cocoa butter added, by acting as an emulsifier. An emulsifier links the molecules of the various ingredients together. Soy added to chocolate changes the texture with regard to fluidity and brittleness. Cocoa butter is the most expensive ingredient used to make chocolate, whereas soy lecithin is less expensive, and less of it is needed. Adding soy lecithin makes conching (stirring) much easier, and reduces considerably the time needed for this operation. Less electricity is needed when soy lecithin is added to chocolate, and chocolate makers can use regular equipment as opposed to high performance equipment.

           [Via: Soy Free Sales]

A single origin bar, more definitively, one specific plantation Maralumi from Papua New Guinea.

To better understand what this means specifically here is a great description of single origin terms from The Nibble.

• Single Origin Cacao, also known as origin cacao, pure origin cacao and monorigin cacao, refers to cacao beans grown in one particular area or region,or the chocolate made from these beans (which can be called called single origin chocolate).
• Grand Cru Cacao is is a marketing term referring to single origin chocolate, coined by Valrhona when the company launched the first single origin bar in 1986 (Guanaja 70%, a mixture of beans from South America.
• Premier Cru/Estate Grown Cacao is also a marketing term. What Michel Cluizel calls 1er [Premier] Cru chocolate, where the beans come from specific plantations, is called Estate Grown by Valrhona. To add to the confusion, in the wine industry, from which this terminology is taken, a Grand Cru wine is better-quality than a Premier Cru wine. But the reverse is true given these chocolate definitions: Cluizel’s 1er Cru chocolate, which is single estate, is of higher quality than Valrhona’s Grand Cru, which is only single origin—and that origin, e.g. “South America
  
  ,” can be extremely broad compared to a single estate on one island.

This is a single plantation, couverture* chocolate bar. This doesn't mean that the same rules of single origin tasting do not apply. You will taste distinctive trademarks of the beans from the regions they come from, but this just means one specific estate has a higher quality of beans from the specific region.

*Couverture    (COO-ver-tyoor)    is    professional-quality chocolate that is used for tempering and making bonbons, truffles and chocolate bars, or enrobing other confections.

[Via: Gourmet Food - Michel Cluizel Chocolate - The World's Best Chocolate - Product Review - THE NIBBLE Gourmet Food Magazine  Karen Hochman and Peter Rot 2006]

Papua New Guinea sits right below zero degrees on the equator. Optimal growing conditions for chocolate, as 20°N & 20°S of the equator are the borders in which the worlds best cocoa is produced. 

As described on the package:

The island of Papua - New Guinea, off the coast of Australia, is an unusual origin for cocoa. A superb Maralumi plantation lies close to the East coast producing refined beans that greatly appealed to me. They give this mellow chocolate slightly roasted and spicy flavours, fresh notes of green bananas and acidulates flavours of red currants prolonged by charming aromas of Havana tobacco leaves.

Try not to let the generic flavor profile influence your palate. Taste first and then evaluate whether your palate detected the same notes or not. Taste is subjective meaning your palate is unique and just because certain notes are detected from someone else it doesn't make them right and you wrong about what you're tasting. But be advised that there is usually a general consensus of what flavors are commonly found from each region.

I personally jump right in, smell the chocolate, evaluate it, taste it, and complete my own notes. Then I will research what is typical of the region or what others have noted about the particular chocolate to see where my palate is in conjunction with theirs. I am trying desperately not to remember anything more than the basic flavor profiles of certain regions as to not influence my palate.

1er Cru de Plantation "Maralumi."

Bean Varietal: Unknown, but most likely is Trinitario as that bean varietal is common for Papua New Guinea.

Ingredients: Cocoa, cane sugar, cocoa butter, bourbon vanilla pod.

Type: Bittersweet, 64%

Sample size: 3.5oz or 100g

Appearance: Soft, muted, but deep brown colors. Not very shiny, but smooth design and molding.

Score: 92

Snap: Clean break lines, but a dull, low thud sound.

Score: 79

Aroma: At first it was very soft and delicate nose nutty almost peanut-y. But then it opened up more with mild hints of tar, big fruit intermixed with a slight flowery perfume aroma, big tobacco leaves, roasted cocoa, and blueberries. Hints of spicy, cinnamon aroma was present as well.

Score: 94

Taste: Upfront, bright berry fruits, big honey notes, orange blossom, sharp and tangy but not too astringent, bitter with undefined edges (not rounded and comes in and out), wood, tiny hints of banana and orange blossom from retro-olfaction. Mild lingering astringent after taste that was slightly present in the initial tasting, but more so on the end of the taste.

Score: 97

Texture: Smooth and soft, quick melt time.

Score: 95

Although the flavor of this chocolate are straightforward and meet you immediately upon tasting, it's complicated chocolate. The bitterness is very apparent on this bar and comes out about midway through the melt. It doesn't jab you in the neck with it's presence, but very apparent and in your face.

The gorgeous honey notes were my favorite part of the tasting. I wrote orange blossom down twice because I detected it in the beginning, and then the bitterness berry flavors overtook the palate. Through retro-olfaction it was once again present with banana notes.

It's a shame about the snap quality which really drags the average down for this particular chocolate. Without knowing the percentage of cocoa butters used, it's hard to say if this was an intended effect or not. Reading about Cluizel, soft textures are a hallmark. The chocolate broke in clean lines, but again was a dull and low thud for a snap versus a decisive and direct snap sound.

Despite the score for this chocolate which may seem less that stellar for a such a world renowned chocolatier, it's only the snap that is indicating that score. This was fantastic over all and very much deserves the world class reputation it has. Once again a real thinking chocolate that demands respect.

Side Note:

I am quite sure the lower score of this particular chocolate will garnish a lot of either disagreement or mistrust in my reviews as the mass produced Villars Chocolat Noir 72%, received a higher score than this world renowned single origin producer. The fact of the matter is I rated one higher than the other and it was not based on the quality of bean. Clearly Cluizel, is much better in quality, but in subjective matters, I enjoyed eating the Villars a great deal and frankly, I was more surprised with it than I was with the Maralumi. I went into this knowing that the Cruizel would be world class, but the results of the Villars, were much more surprising than I had thought. It was a surprise factor in the end, and not a class factor. A minor technicality is the cause of a lower score for the Maralumi bar.

Final Score: 91.4

score
B+

Comments

[Vercruysse Geert]

Thanks you for this great review, I learned a lot about these chocolates reading this article.
I now sell these chocolates since one week and I'm really satisfied with the tastingresults from last week.
My favorite is the Maralumi, but its personal...

Thanks
Geert