Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Taste Artisan Chocolate - 58% Madagascar Milk Chocolate bar - Oct. 31, 2018

Chocolate of the Day: 

Taste Artisan Chocolate
58% Madagascar Milk Chocolate bar
Good ++
Weight: 1.5 oz. (42.5 g.) / 3 oz. (85 g.) in total bar
Calories: 225 calories (estimate) in 1/2 bar
Cost: $7.96 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Chocosphere, online order

Happy Halloween! And welcome to Day #3 of Single Origin Milk Chocolate Theme Week.

Nope, no chocolate pumpkins or scary cocoa ghosts this year. We're going for tasty, comfort chocolates.

The chocolates featured this week are dark milk chocolate bars that contain a higher percentage cacao (solids) than most milk chocolate bars on the market, above 40% cacao. The more cacao, the more true chocolate flavor. (By contrast, some milk chocolates may contain only 10%-12% cacao—the approximate threshold that a chocolate manufacturer must meet to call their product milk chocolate.)

Today's 58% Madagascar Milk Chocolate bar was from Taste Artisan Chocolate (Provo, Utah). Taste is a "food experience lounge," located in downtown Provo, and is next door to a manufacturing facility (Coleman and Davis, an operation managed by Char and Morgan Coleman and local chocolate expert Phil Davis) where Taste chocolate is made, from bean-to-bar.

This gluten free, four ingredient* dark milk bar was made with cacao grown in the rich, volcanic soils of Sambirano Valley region of Madagascar. An additional detail provided on the packaging: the cacao used from this region had "both Venezuelan and Mexican heritage (and) the natives call (it) "green gold." (Note: All cacao originally came from the Americas.)

The bar broke with a well-tempered snap, and had slightly malty, caramel, true chocolate notes. The texture was smooth and the melt and mouthfeel slow and luxurious.

The red fruit and berry notes often associated with Madagascar were more evident after the third small, careful bite; and, as expected, were muted a bit by the milk. The characteristic red color associated with cacao from this African island nation, however, was not. It could be seen immediately upon opening the silver foil wrapper. The bar had a pleasing finish with no off notes.

*Ingredients: Organic cacao, organic cane sugar, organic cocoa butter, milk powder.





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