20°N & 20°S

Millcreek Cacao Roasters Part 1

                       

 

 

Being a blogger comes with some very special perks. When a chocolate maker sees your blog and decides they want you to write about their product, the gratitude will never cease to happen. It's truly an awesome thing. And I only hope that I can do justice to the fine makers who deem me worthy of trying their products. 

 

I was contacted recently by Dana Brewster about trying Millcreek Cacao. She sent me a very generous package of 6 full bars. The Cube Collection. That is a lot. Each bar is about 50g. That means this review has taken place over a few days. Oh the humanity... Life is so hard.... Effort....

 

Hailing from Salt Lake City, Utah (the unofficial new Mecca of chocolate making in the US or so it seems these days), official bean-to-bar chocolate makers and roasters with a special caveat of selling cacao teas (steeped cacao nibs and husks) using Arriba Nacional beans of Ecuador. Originally coffee roasters, but both armed with a passion for chocolate, Dana, an École Chocolat school alum and Mark Delvecchio decided upon Arriba Nacional beans as their favorite taste. Traveling to Ecuador, they sourced out a local cacao farm and bought beans and cocoa butter of the same varietal to become bean-to-bar makers. 

More on Heirloom Cacao Preservation with Arriba Nacional beans from Millcreek's blog. 

Heirloom Cacao Preservation for the farmers.

Hacienda Limon, Ecuador

 

 

                                

 

                      

                                   

 

           


Chuno 78% 

 

Type: Unreleased bar from Nicaragua. Bittersweet dark chocolate 78%

Bean Varietal: Chuno, Trinitario. 

Ingredients: Cacao, cane sugar, and unsure of cocoa butter content.

Sample Size: 50g

 

Quick reading on Nicaraguan beans from Confectionary News: 

New World of cocoa: Artisan chocolatiers marvel at origin Nicaragua

By Oliver Nieburg+, 14-Jan-2015

Artisan chocolate makers are welcoming Nicaragua as a rare and blossoming cocoa origin, according to supplier Ingemann.

http://www.confectionerynews.com/Commodities/US-chocolate-makers-drawn-to-Nicaraguan-cocoa

 

Appearance:  Large square monogrammed tablet. Deep brown color, large crack on one corner, a bit dusty with particles. Slight bubbles in the molding, but flat smooth filling on the back side. Slightly shiny. 

Score: 72

Snap: Good clean snap, lighter snap feel, but clean and crisp sound. 

Score: 93

Aroma: Bright full sharp aroma. Tangy with citrus fruits. Deep fruits and deeper floral aromas. Sweet aroma with sugars and some slight char. 

Score: 94

Taste: Bready first tastes, full bitter roast, acidic, slightly tangy, deep berries and dark fruits, cereal grains, softer and extremely subtle flowery notes on the second taste, as well as inky char notes. 

Score: 96

Texture: Slightly drying and chalky. Creamy melt but by dry finish on the palate. A tiny bit grainy to the palate. Medium long melt time. 

Score: 83

 

Great flavors. This is extremely complex with lots of different factors coming into play at different moments on the palate allowing for each taste to present itself individually. Loved the cereal grains and bready flavors mixed with the soft floral tones and big fruity berries. It's deep and rich and has the right amount of tangy acids. It gives off a mix of delicate but grainy earth tones and big berries. This is great tasting chocolate. Loved it.

The aroma is nice and strong too. Big profiles presenting right off the bat and some softer subtleties, just like the taste, come out later. Nice and full. 

The texture is a mixed bag. It's creamy and good melt but grainy and dry finish at the same time. A little chalky because of that dryness. 

The appearance has a big crack in it which is the reason for the low score. Slightly covered in particles too. and not as shiny. But over all the molding is great. Simple monogram pattern, and smooth fill on the back.

It's times like this where I say skip the appearance and the small details of a review because it's not a typical thing to have happen and really the taste of this bar is phenomenal. I really enjoyed this and think any chocolate purist will enjoy this. It was really great chocolate. Ignore the technical score and go right for the taste of this chocolate. 

 

Total score: 87.6

 

score
B

 

 

                               

 

         

Pure 70%

 

Type: Bittersweet, dark chocolate.

Bean Varietal: Arriba Nacional

Ingredients: Cacao beans, cane sugar, cocoa butter.  

Sample size: 50g

 

Appearance: Deep Dark brown color, single large square tablet, monogrammed, smooth back fill surface, particles, very minor bubbles on the monogram, slightly shiny surface. 

Score: 88

Snap: Light but firm crisp snap. Good snapping sound. Clean break lines. 

Score: 91

Aroma: Very fruity, complex aroma with a light tangy aroma, sugary notes, berries, soft wood, light tar undertones, and some smokiness and soft vanilla.

Score: 92

Taste: Nice deep full flavors of wood and berries, big flowery perfume tastes, tangy and little sharp with acidity right up front but mellows out very quickly, a pop of bright green unripened fruits. Good inky bitterness, and more cereal grains.

Score: 95

Texture: Nice and creamy, smooth texture, a tiny bit of grit in there but very slight. Medium melt time.

Score: 91

 

Really great flavors on this bar too. Cereal grains are present here as well, signs of the fermentation. But big classic Ecuador bean flavors of jasmine, woods, and tangy berries. A little hint of some green, unripened fruits. 

This smells nice and full with really great aromas. Lots of details in the aroma. It tastes amazing. Nice and robust flavors. And the texture comes a long nicely. Good creamy melt time. No need for a lot of descriptions here other than it's classic or what I have have come to know as classic flavors of Ecuador beans and super delicious. Really liked this chocolate. 

 

Final Score: 91.4

score
B+

 

 

                                  

 

     

Himalayan Pink Salt 70%

 

Type: Flavored bittersweet, dark chocolate.

Bean Varietal: Arriba Nacional

Ingredients: Cacao beans, cane sugar, cocoa butter, Himalayan pink salt.

Sample Size: 50g

 

Appearance: Dark Brown square monogrammed tablet, smooth slightly shiny surface, flat and smooth back fill, coarse salt crystals.

Score: 92

Snap: Good and hard snap. Clean break lines with nice good snap sound.

Score: 93

Aroma: Big robust aroma with fruits and dry roasted aromas, nutty, sweet sugars, inky tar notes, soft vanilla, slight smokiness. 

Score: 92

Taste: Nice salt balance, big sweet tangy flavors of berries, tart acidic notes, bright green unripened fruit undertones, woody, earthy, nutty flavors. 

Score: 96

Texture: Medium hard, medium fast melt time. Creamy texture, very slight graininess, and coarse grain salt crystals.

Score: 90

 

Same aroma as the Pure 70% but dryer with a more pronounced nutty aroma. 

The salt brings out a few more flavors than the Pure 70%. A more pronounced nutty flavor same with the aroma. But the same flavors of the unripened fruit, berries, and tangy citrus flavors almost like pineapple, are all there with the earthiness and cereal grains. The salt also brings out a nice leathery flavor during retro-olfaction. Not as pronounced are the flowery jasmine flavors. But more straight up inky bitter flavors with earthy wood and berries. It's funny how a little pinch of salt will change the game of a chocolate. 

The texture is similar to the Pure, but a little harder and a little more coarse with the salt grains. Still that same medium melt and hardness and a touch of graininess. 

The salt is quite strong too. I love sweet and salty combos. But on the surface it doesn't look like it's enough salt. But it is. It balances well and is strong enough for the bold chocolate flavors.

 

Final Score: 92.6

score
B+

 

 

Really minor details noted here, but over all this is superior chocolate. A few textural issues, and minor surface issues really shouldn't be taken into account compared to the flavors of these chocolates. The taste is there and completely bold and delicious. I am very happy with them and I would definitely recommend these bars. I especially recommend that Chuno bar because the flavors are awesome. So big and so bold. 

La Maison du Chocolat ~ Pariguan 69%

 

 

 

 

Pariguan, Dark chocolate with flowers and citrus notes.

A Porcelana bean bar from La Maison du Chocolate in Gay Paree. Actually, it's from one of their shops in London courtesy of Angelo Scarnea again. Named after the plantation, Porcelana Criollo del pedregal, in Venezuela. Valrhona couverture.

In doing some light searching about this particular plantation, I found that Valhrona uses the plantation for these Porcelana beans. I had to guess that La Maison used Valrhona as couverture. This was confirmed to me by Stuart Robson, Whiskey and Chocolate aficionado, who used to work for La Maison. The founder of La Maison, Robert Linxe worked closely with Valrhona on certain ventures. I believe that not everything is made with Valrhona coverture, but this bar is.

Chocolate companies should really make that more clear. It's not like it's top secret information or trade secrets. If you use courverture, just say so. Or please list your information properly on your websites.

History of La Maison du Chocolate.

 

Click images to enlarge.

 

 

Pariguan Noir 69%

 

Type: Bittersweet, 69%

Bean Varietal: Porcelana, Criollo varieties

Ingredients: Cocoa paste, brown sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla.

Sample Size: 75g or 2.6oz

Lot #: LP7510312

 

Appearance: Smooth surface, flat large squared tablet, slightly textured surface with a simple monogram on each square. Medium brown color. One minor scratch on the surface.

Score: 93

Snap: Good firm snap, good snap sound, and clean break lines.

Score: 93

Aroma: Very acidic right out of the package, tar, and cherries, but then softens up quite a bit with a nice floral aroma, soft muted roasted cacao.

Score: 90

Taste: Sweet, very sugary sweet, lightly acidic, cherries, wood, pen ink, slightly nutty.

Score: 87

Texture: Smooth, creamy, fast melt time.

Score: 93

 

This has all the hallmarks of fantastic Venezuelan cacao, but I feel like a lot was lost due to too much sugar. And while it doesn't have an immediate intense acidic quality to it, it's pretty tangy. There are deep tart cherries, ink, rich wood flavors, and a little bit of nuttiness in there. I love these flavors, but the sugar tore my palate up. It made it difficult to focus on these flavors and fully understand them better. It was too sweet and that's why I gave it a lower score.

The aroma is everything is says on the package, but really soft. It's big and citrus-y right out of the package and then softens to a nice floral aroma and soft roasted cacao. There really wasn't a lot going with this aroma and it dissipates so quickly leaving only a light roasted aroma and some smoke. That's why it didn't score that high. It's good for a few minutes, but doesn't last long.

Technically every thing else was right on the mark. It's snap was fantastic, the surface was flawless barring one very minor, superficial scratch. You need to click on the image and see this bar up close to know what I am talking about with the sort of textured surface. It doesn't look like it from the small pictures but you can see it when it's enlarged. The texture was excellent. The technical elements hold this chocolate up. If it weren't for the addition of all that sugar on this bar, I think they could have had and A+ bar here.

 

Final Score: 91.2

   score
  B+

Claudio Corallo ~ Sablé 80%

 

 

 

Click to enlarge images.

 

Sablé "Sandy" 80%

 

Type: Bittersweet, 80%

Bean Varietal: Trinitario/ Hybrid

Ingredients: Cocoa, sugar, cocoa butter.

Sample Size: 50g or 1.76oz

 

Appearance: Two raw and unrefined tablets, broken tablets, no molding, large course sugar lightly covering the top and mixed with in, but not overly sugared and shiny. No glossy finish but a matte finish.

Score: 90

Snap: Thinner tablets, lightly firm crisp snap, lightly audible, but clean break lines that left a clear image of the hallows inside from the course sugar.

Score: 89

Aroma: Huge, massive aroma. Fresh coffee grinds, roasted cocoa, char, burnt toast, a bit medicinal, rubber, tar, and huge blueberries. Very slight lingering aromas of honey and cinnamon.

Score: 98

Taste: Sweet sugar up front, then charred and roasted cocoa, deeply bitter but not astringent or acidic, toasted almonds and cereal grains, and a light Cinnamon finish. The sugar is balanced and comes through at various stages of tasting. Lingering char from retro-olfaction.

Score: 96

Texture: Crunchy sugar crystals, dry and chalky, medium melt time.

Score: 82

 

I have learned to appreciate the simplicity of these bars appearance. I wasn't as kind in my first review of Claudio Corallo on appearance. Technically they should score real low on appearance but this is just straight up chocolate and simply molded. It isn't trying to be fancy and it isn't trying to be glamorous, which I like about these bars. Either be pretty and have an elaborate or unique/signature molding or just be raw and natural. It was just too broken up to score higher for rustic integrity in my opinion.

The aroma is by far and away one of the biggest aromas I have ever smelled on a bar. I took all the notes I could upon opening this package, I then repeatedly went back to the package and it took two full weeks for the aroma to dissipate from it's packaging. It still has this amazing toasted cinnamon aroma. It's like my inhaler. Two weeks later!

The aroma right out of the package was amazing. Huge blueberries underneath some pretty raw char aromas. Roasted cocoa and coffee grinds. Like someone took freshly ground, super strong, French roasted coffee grinds and put it in with this bar. But the blueberries held on. It had lots of charred aromas, burnt toast and rubber. That might not sound very appealing to some people, but I love how funky it is.

The taste is deeply bitter without any astringency or acidity. The large course sugar was exactly what this chocolate needed. It added a good sweet balance and crunchy texture. The flavor was toasted grains and cinnamon with coffee and char. Breakfast chocolate. Cinnamon toast and coffee. The char on the aroma was not as robust on the flavor but still nice mingling with toasted almonds. Not very fruity. I was hoping for a blueberry taste as strong as it was on the aroma.

Aside from the crunchy sugar crystals, I wasn't in love with the texture of this chocolate. It's dry, and chalky and had a medium long melt time. This chocolate would be perfection if it had a creamier texture.

 

Final Score: 91

    score
 B+

Rogue Chocolatier ~ Piura 75%

 

 

Very small batch, Limited Edition bar from Rogue. This is beyond Single Origin. This is a single plantation bar with a very limited quantity of only four bags of cocoa beans.

 

Colin Gasko explains it best in his words from his packaging and website.

For a year we have been working to bring in this very special cacao from an isolated population of trees in Northern Peru. We have finally managed to bring in a “nano-lot” of only four bags of cacao from Juan Tirado’s 7.5 acre organic cacao farm in Morropon Province in Piura, Peru. This is the smallest micro-lot ever made into a bar. All four bags of this storied “white-bean” cacao come from a single fermentation and drying cycle, giving us the rare opportunity to create a chocolate that will give new meaning to the term “single origin.” More importantly, Juan’s farm produces the finest cacao that we have tasted. This is a result of genetics, but also of excellent post-harvest handling, leading to a distinct floral aroma with an extremely mild, buttery flavor of nuts, cocoa, and raspberries. Each of the fewer than 4,000 bars produced is wrapped in a beautiful limited edition letterpress printed packaging.

 

The Piura Region of Peru is located in the northern region of Peru. The Morropon Province is located in the center of this region.

Via Wikipedia and the image:

This province is located in the center of the Piura Region, being a land of contrast and climatic fusion. It is dotted by tropical forests of the dry-equatorial style in its flat areas were the carob tree predominates. In high areas of an elevation 1,500 to 2,000 metres (4,900–6,600 ft) the landscape changes to smooth high jungle and a lack of varied hilly valleys.

 

 

 

Click to enlarge images.

 

 

 

Piura 75%

Type: Bittersweet, 75%

Varietal: Unknown. I will have to ask Colin if he is aware of what the bean varietal is on this bar of chocolate. Peru has all the classic bean varietals plus hybrids and even some unknown or new varietals. Peru a chocolate geeks paradise for discoveries.

Ingredients: Cocoa beans and cane sugar.

Sample Size: 2.12oz or 60g

Bag #: 2

Batch #: 2

Date: 07/05/2010

 

Appearance: Smooth, sleek, un-molded bar. Thin and shiny, completely unblemished... on one side, the other side matted heavily from plastic wrapper.

Score: 85

Snap: Light crisp sound, asymmetrical break lines due to no molding lines. But still firm for a thinner bar of chocolate.

Score: 87

Aroma: Tangy aroma, floral, raspberries, tobacco, slightly nutty aroma, and dry.

Score: 92

Taste: Tangy, lightly acidic, astringent, big wood, big raspberries, inky, a bit of toasted malts. An interesting burst of sugar right after the initial taste, but it is quickly overtaken by astringency.

Score: 91

Texture: Smooth and creamy with a slightly drying finish, medium fast melt time.

Score: 98

The appearance score was tough to give. On one side it was pure perfection for an un-molded bar of chocolate. Completely unblemished except for my finger prints when pulling it out of it's wrapper. On the other side it's the prime example of the some of the unwanted effects from wrapping your chocolate in plastic. However, the plastic allows for the aroma to stay intact and allows for a much longer shelf life. I will always be in favor of this no mater what happens to the appearance.

It's aroma was quite tangy and floral. Normally I don't like to be influenced by what the package descriptions say you should smell or taste on a bar, but sometimes it's just unavoidable and completely not up for debate. The aroma and taste are there through and through. It smelled like big bright raspberries and tasted like it too.

As I mentioned it's highly fruity with raspberries and it's very tangy A little too tangy for my liking, but it had what is becoming a classic Rogue hallmark of cedar woods. I got a lot of raspberries and wood and it didn't allow for some of it's subtleties to come through. A little bit with some toasted malt flavors. The astringency leaves a slightly bitter lingering taste on the palate, but not offensively. Also some lingering coffee notes.

I am in love with the texture. It is a little bit drying on the finish, but the creaminess of it and how it softly melts away is truly amazing. I didn't get a nutty buttery taste on this chocolate like the package suggests, I did get a lovely buttery soft texture.

 

Final Score: 90.6

   score
  B+

Claudio Corallo ~ Soft 73.5% with Nibs

 

 

 

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.

 

Claudio Corallo

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.

 

 

73.5% with Nibs

 

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

 

    score
     B-

 

When Bad Things Happen To Good Chocolate

Saturday night I met with a bunch of BeerAdvocates for a staff meeting at The Publick House in Brookline. These are the fine folks who volunteer for me for the BeerAdvocate beer festivals thrown here in Boston. We have the Extreme Beer Festival happening this weekend and an I needed to go over some information and talk about what was to be expected for the festival.

I happened to bring with me samples of chocolate that have been sitting around and needed to be eaten. Some of it was already reviewed, but some of it was chocolate I couldn't review.

Some of the chocolate I had, was not reviewable, but still edible. Some of it had bloom, and one of them I dropped and broke into a million pieces. The conditions in my apartment haven't been to favorable for storing chocolate. It gets either way too cold or way too hot. Mostly it's too hot. Especially in the winter when the heat is turned on full which I have no control over. Or if the heat doesn't come on and I have left my windows open in the wintertime to combat the heat, the house is frozen. Needless to say this has wreaked havoc on some the chocolate I wanted to review. Luckily, I am getting them replaced to give them all a fair shot.

This is why I didn't review some of these chocolates. It's my fault or rather my apartment's fault that there is an unstable environment for storage. I felt it was unfair to review these chocolates in the state they were in despite still being perfectly fine to eat.

But having bloom on chocolate does not make the chocolate inedible. And chocolate also has a very long shelf life. I brought the chocolate to the meeting and let the staff have at it. I was able to talk to them about bloom and let them experience some real chocolate for a change.

I am currently sitting on 25 bars of chocolate up for review. With new ones that just came in from my husband for Valentine's day, a friend from England who has been on a mission in London rounding up chocolate from all over the city, and my good friend Shane Welch of Sixpoint Craft Ales, bringing me more Mast Brothers to review, you can see why I had to get rid of this chocolate. I already reviewed a lot of it, and I didn't want to see if just go to waste.

What we tasted:

Amano: Madagascar 70% (reviewed)
Amedei 9 (reviewed)
Amedei La Tavolette
Mast Brothers:
    Sea Salt + Pepper 75%
    Fleur de Sel 75% (reviewed)
    Dried cranberries 75%
    Sea Salt + Almonds 75%
    Cocoa Nibs 75%
Villars L'Ancienne (reviewed)
Villars Noir 72% (reviewed)
Chocolat Olivier Selection 85% (reviewed)
Pralus 100% Criollo
Chocolat Olivier Ghana 70% (reviewed)
Michel Cluizel Mangaro 65% (reviewed)
Michel Cluizel Maralumi 64% (reviewed)
Fine & Raw Mesquite Bar (reviewed)




 

We drank Brooklyn Cookie Jar Porter, Dogfish Head World Wide Stout, and Great Divide's Yeti. The Cookie jar was fairly flat but still tasted excellent, the WWS was too sweet, and but the Yeti was just right for the more bitter chocolates.

It was a Saturday night at the Publick House. A lot of other people who were not part of the BA meeting were standing around curious about what we were doing. It looked like I was teaching a class on crack. Everyone had a major caffeine buzz going on and all of the sample were in plastic baggies.

The Cluizel went over well for texture. The Mast Brothers Salt and Pepper was voted best over all. And the very harsh Pralus was a bigger hit than I expected. Unsweetened 100% bitter chocolate.

 

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+