Chocolate of the Day: Arete Fine Chocolate
Ecuador Costa Esmeraldas 100% Cacao Dark Chocolate bar
Good ++ - Very Good
Weight: 1.15 oz. (32.5 g.) / 2.3 oz. (65 g.) in total bar
Calories: 172 calories (estimate) in 1/2 bar
Cost: $ missing information
Purchased from: missing information
Welcome to Day #17 of South American Chocolate Weeks.We're winding up a virtual tour of Ecuador with another ebony-colored bar from Costa Esmeraldas. (Yesterday's bar was made with cacao from the same area.) Today's chocolate is a 100% Ecuador Dark Chocolate bar from Arete Fine Chocolate (Milpitas, CA).
This bar had a bittersweet aroma, with hints of dried fruit (goji berries), light molasses spice, and had a balanced, bitter dark chocolate flavor throughout the tasting experience. The texture was uniformly creamy and pleasing.
This was a one-ingredient bar: just cocoa beans from Costa Esmeraldas, Ecuador, and nothing else.
Chocolate makers and Arete company founders, David and Leslie Senk, often press their own single origin cocoa butter (for extra smoothness). However, adding cocoa butter from the same bean origin as the cocoa solids is not typical. Even though cocoa beans can contain half fat; the percentages will vary according to origin and climate. Extra fat may be needed for leaner beans that typically grow closer to the Equator.
Some makers will add cocoa butter obtained from another region, even though cocoa fat can add some flavor characteristics. Using beans from the same farm or region for both cocoa solids and fat gives the taster a more pure or concentrated single origin experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment