Saturday, February 13, 2016

Marou - Treasure Island 3/4 Dark Chocolate bar - Feb. 13, 2016

www.marouchocolate.com
Chocolate of the Day: 

Marou Faiseurs de Chocolat
Treasure Island 3/4 Cacao Limited Edition Dark Chocolate bar
Good ++
Weight: .93 oz. (26.6 g.) / 2.8 oz. (80 g.) in total bar
Calories: 140 calories (estimate) in 1/3 bar
Cost: $10.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: The Chocolate Garage, Palo Alto, CA

Welcome to the final day of Chocolate and Some Enchanted Islands Theme Week. Today's "island" was located in the Mekong River Delta in Vietnam.

Historic tales, like Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, feature pirate-filled quests for treasure chests of gold, coins and ill-gotten gains, often buried on exotic islands.

Island treasures also can include fragrant spices, exotic fruits—and flavorful cacao wrapped in beautifully designed packaging.

The image (upper right -- from Marou Chocolate website) is one I love. It shows the range of colors in cacao fruit (pods), and correlates these colors with some of the company's bars.

Marou Faiseurs de Chocolat is a bean-to-bar chocolate maker based in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Vietnam. The two founders, Samuel Mourou and Vincent Maruta, have been making chocolate from Vietnam cacao since 2011.

Tasting notes: (from Marou website): "...subtle notes of liquorice (sic) and spice in this extremely delicate 75% chocolate made with cacao growing in very small quantities on Tan Phu Dong Island in the middle of the Mekong River." I also picked up a hint of raisin cinnamon toast in the aroma and flavor associated with this bar.

Unlike many chocolate bars made in North America and Europe, today's bar was made "in-country"—i.e., the chocolate was made in the same country where the cacao was grown (Vietnam in this case).

Today's Marou bar was soy, gluten and dairy free. The bar was imported into the U.S. by Dark Chocolate Imports LLC (Bloomfield Hill, MI), and sold in specialty chocolate stores (The Chocolate Garage (Palo Alto, CA) in this case).

Tomorrow we travel to Madagascar, a large island nation that's big enough to merit its own theme week.

The content and images in this post belong to ChocolateBanquet.com.









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