20°N & 20°S

Chocolats Olivier ~ Selection 85%

Chocolats Olivier ~ Selection

As I mentioned in a previous post about Chocolats Olivier ~Pure Origine Ghana, there is virtually no information about this company to discuss for this review. At least I am not finding it anywhere. I don't have any information about the company, or this particular bar of chocolate.

What I do know is that Chocolats Olivier is located in Toulouse, France.

The regions of the blended beans for this bar of chocolate; The Ivory Coast, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela.


 

The regions classic hallmarks reflect a lot of what was detected in the aroma of this bar. Taken from The Nibble:

Cote d’Ivoire

•Forastero •Bold, hearty •Noncomplex blending beans •Cocoa, tobacco, and leather

Bold and hearty cacao, Ivory Coast has long been a favorite supplier of bulk beans. It’s an excellent choice for blended chocolate because of its boldness and noncomplex flavor of cocoa, tobacco, and leather.

Trinidad

•Trinitario •Light tone, delicate character •Woody and spicy •Chocolate, grass, butter •Citrus & tropical fruits

Trinidad has about 21 distinct growing regions, but the most well-known is Gran Couva, the plantation popularized by Valrhona. Trinidad is regarded as the birthplace of Trinitario cacao, the hybrid of Criollo and Forastero that was created in the 1700s, after the island’s Criollo crop was largely wiped out by forces of nature. Forasteros were introduced to restore the island’s cacao crop but a unique hybridization with the few remaining Criollos resulted in the entirely new Trinitario species, with the delicate flavor of Criollo and the hardiness of Forastero. Trinidadian cacao can vary tremendously in flavor, so one might taste woodiness and spicy tartness in one chocolate, grass and butter tones in another, and slight citrus and tropical nuances in another—or perhaps a combination of all flavors in one chocolate. Generally, the body is medium and somewhat delicate in overall character and pleasingly chocolaty.

Venezuela

Venezuela has two distinct growing regions: Sur del Lago and the Andean. Many different subspecies of cacao are grown in both regions. The cacaos are further distinguished by names typically derived from shipping ports or villages where the cacao was grown. For example, Rio Caribe cacao is grown near Rio Caribe; and Carenero Superior refers to the Carenero port, which was once a high-traffic port for this type of cacao (“Superior” denotes the finer quality of the beans). The quality cacaos of Venezuela are:

Click The Nibble link to see the 8 different regions listed of Venezuelan cacao.

[Second set of pictures is to illustrate the possibility of sugar bloom. A light, dusty film coated the bars and you can see where I rubbed the chocolate.]


Selection 85%

Bean Varietal: Unknown Blend of beans from the Ivory Coast, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela, regions known for Forastero.

Ingredients: Cocoa, sugar, cocoa butter, soya lecithin.

Type: Bittersweet 85%



Appearance: Simple monogrammed molding. Slightly dusty in appearance, the beginning signs of sugar bloom. Smooth surface despite slight dusty, sugar bloom layer.

Score: 89

Snap: Nice audible snap sound, clean break lines.

Score: 96

Aroma: Big, robust cherries, almonds and oak. A smoky tobacco aroma appeared after it had been removed from the package for a bit, but then it settled down a bit and the almond and cherry notes were softer coupled with a spicy nose.

Score: 99

Taste: Roasted cocoa, Slight hints of flowers, very low acidity, extremely bitter but not sharp, tar, takes a very long time to open up but once it does, cherries and roasted cocoa are present but only briefly. Lingering hints of flowers.

Score: 88

Texture: Smooth but dry, hard, extremely slow melt time.

Score: 73

I wasn't thrilled with this bar. It was too hard, too bitter, and the cocoa flavors really struggled to present themselves. It reminded of drinking a big hoppy beer. Something with a very high bittering unit (IBU's). Smells fantastic with th huge hop aromas, but once you drink them, your palate is shot and you can't drink another beer after that and expect to get the full flavors of the beer. This is palate killing chocolate. Some people may indeed crave the severe bitterness of this chocolate, for me it wasn't the bitterness I didn't like, It was the hard texture.

The higher cocoa percentages also have higher caffeine amounts. A few bites of this chocolate and it's better than a cup of coffee. Maybe I should call it "Morning Chocolate."

But not all is lost for this chocolate. I believe that pairing it with beer, a big robust and bitter stout like Great Divide's Yeti or Old Viscosity from Port Brewing Co. What that would do is sort of cancel each other out and allow for the cocoa flavors a chance to present themselves. Fine intricacies wouldn't be detected but the raw cocoa flavors would come out more. In turn the chocolate would tone down the beer and make them more palatable and easier drinking. The roasted malts would interact with the roasted cocoa beans and probably make for a unique pairing.

*I will post an update to this post very soon to confirm whether or not this extremely bitter chocolate pairs well with a bigger stout. I am also wondering how a newer style on the scene called a Black IPA might hold up to his chocolate. It could be interesting to see how the bitterness of the hops and the bitterness of the chocolate take each other on leave the same effect of the roasted flavors left to mingle.

Final Score: 89

score
B

Chocolats Oliver ~ Pure Origine Ghana

Chocolates Olivier Pure Origine Ghana

I have virtually no information about this chocolatier. Their website contains no information about them except for a few products they are selling and the fact that they are located in Toulouse, France. The store that I bought it from in San Francisco called CocoaBella, also has no information about them on their website.

I love the packaging. It's eye popping. The darker hues of the first picture don't do it that much justice. The bright yellow against that turquois blue draws you in.

The only bit of information I found on Chocolat Olivier was from question someone asked over at seventypercent.com back in 2007 and answered from a moderator on the site named Masur.

Too me it looks like they are using single origin couverture from Barry Callebaut. I'm sure you're familiar with their chocolate.
A quote from Chocolats Olivier website:

quote:

---

Chocolats Olivier was purchased in April of 2005 by Franco-American brothers Alain and Alexander Beret and American business partner James Fairbanks. Since its purchase in 2005, Olivier has reached beyond its regional borders of Toulouse to expand its sales into the United States, Russia, United Arab Emirates and Europe.

---

Regrettably their price is too high in Sweden. 7.5 Euro for a bar is far too much I think. I'm sure the American business partner is in it for the money.

http://www.chocolatsolivier.com/

I have no idea where this person got their information from, because it is not on the Chocolats Olivier website. Maybe more information was posted was two years ago, but it's not there now. It's a bit presumptuous to call some out as only "in it for the money" without presenting all the facts.

I don't know what the prices were like for this chocolate two years ago. Today they are priced at €3.80 and not €7.50. I am not an expert on the Euro, taxes, or importing in Sweden, but to crassly blame the American as only being out for money without facts to back it up is tacky.

Back to the chocolate. Whether they use Callebaut chocolate or not, the beans are from Ghana. No indication on what type of beans they use, but most of the beans coming from Ghana are Forastero. The package claims 100% pure cocoa butter.

 


 

Pure Origine Ghana

Bean Varietal: Unknown, but mostly likely Forastero.

Ingredients: 70% cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, soya lecithin, natural vanilla.

Type: Bittersweet, though the packaging claims this is a mild semisweet.

Sample size: 100g or 3.5oz


Appearence: Deep rich color, smooth simple molding, shiny finish.

Score: 93

Snap: Excellent crisp snap. Not too loud, but clean break lines.

Score: 94

Aroma: Big hazelnuts as soon as I took it out of it's package. Big green tobacco leaves, soft and rich roasted cocoa aroma, a little smokey with a big berry aroma.

Score: 93

Taste: Initially it starts of green and a little woody, like the way wood smells when the tree has first been cut down or all the bark peeled back, mildly spicy once it begins to open, very low acidity and zero astringency, deep rich, and robust cocoa flavors, flowery tea flavors towards the end. Very clean finish. Lingering hints of leather on the back end.

Score: 95

Texture: Very soft, medium melt time, very smooth and creamy.

Score: 95

This was gorgeous chocolate. I just wish I had more information about them. The chocolate was fantastic. I especially love chocolates that have low acidity and astringency. This was very smooth, and very easy to eat. This particular bar would make for an excellent bar to start someone out with as a beginner or to give to someone who has very sensitive palate.

Final Score: 94

score
A-

Michel Cluizel ~ 1er Cru de Plantation "Mangaro"

Michel Cluizel 1er Cru de Plantation "Mangaro"

As part of a set I bought in San Francisco at CocoaBella in the SOMA district. CocoaBella had many interesting bars. My only regret is that I didn't buy more of a range from Cluizel. You can read about the first bar I reviewed as part of this set here: Maralumi.

Madagascar is my favorite region to date for cocoa beans. The beans carry main hallmarks of descriptive characteristics such as bright, citrus, Cedar wood, and clean. But each bar I have tried has had distinctly different characteristic which has set this region apart for me such as nuttiness, rubber or tar, mint, and melons. The most curious of all, are the bars that have the vodka characteristics. One bar I tried from Rogue Chocolatier even had a little bit of the esters or heat from the vodka notes. It was unbelievable. I simply find Magagascar beans to be the most interesting.

From the package:

Located on the island of Madagascar at the heart of the Indian Ocean, in the rich valley of the river Sambirano, this plantation flourishes on the land of a former mango tree forest. The beans of these cocoa trees have enabled me to develop a highly flavoured chocolate, blending aromas of exotic fruits, delicious flavours of honey spice cake and acidulated hints of citrus fruits.

1er Cru de Plantation "Mangaro"

Bean Varietal: Unknown, but possibly Trinitario.

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

Type: Bittersweet, 65%

Sample Size: 3.5oz or 100g

Appearance: Standard signature molding, smooth, slightly dulled appearance, but relatively shiny, deep dark brown color.

Score: 94

Snap: Dull snap, fairly audible, but not sharp.

Score: 87

Aroma: Immediately after opening, the aroma was nutty like macadamia nuts, and buttery. Lightly smokey, tobacco leaves, soft wood, reminded me of a dresser drawer or a wooden chest but soft and aged a few years. Very mild hints of jasmine, green mangoes, mild lemon-y citrus notes.

Score: 96

Taste: Soft flowery, lightly woody taste that opens into bright, tangy citrus flavors, acidic, astringent, more soft wood notes follow up and smooth out the astringent effects, nutty, little bit of interaction between soft mangoes and cherries. Cherries are present first, then soft mangoes round it out. Soft lingering bitterness.

Score: 95

Texture: Soft, smooth, creamy texture, with a clean, dry finish.

Score: 93

This was a fairly amazing experience in chocolate. Once again Madagascar beans have proven to be my favorite. This chocolate is all about soft and bold. Soft notes in the beginning, then big bold characteristics come forward, once again the softer more subtle notes come back to round everything out.

I must say though, this wasn't as smooth as I would have hoped for. The different contrasts in flavors on this bar went in succession leaving for an excellent taste experience, but the acidity was big and sharp which left the experience a bit uneven. The lovely aromas, beautiful wood and mango notes on the taste are responsible for a higher score.

Final Score: 93

score
A-

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+