Monday, October 14, 2019

Mission Chocolate - Laranja 70% Fazenda Camboa Dark Chocolate with Candied Orange Peel (bar) - Oct. 14, 2019

Chocolate of the Day: 

Mission Chocolate
Laranja 70% Fazenda Camboa Dark Chocolate with Candied Orange Peel (bar)
Brazil Biomes Project - Atlantic Rainforest
Good +++ - Very Good
Weight: 1.06 oz. (30 g.) / 2.12 oz. (60 g.) in total bar
Calories: 147 calories (per label) in 1/2 bar
Cost: $10.00 (estimate) for 1 bar

Purchased from: Chocolate Covered, San Francisco, CA

Welcome to Day #4 of Chocolate and Brazil Theme Week.

Today's Laranja 70% Fazenda Camboa dark chocolate bar was created by Arcelia Gallardo at Mission Chocolate (Sao Paolo, Brazil).

This well-crafted 70% cacao chocolate was made from cacao grown at Fazenda Camboa (Brazil's largest organic farm, in Bahia, Brazil).

The smooth, yet relatively complex dark chocolate had flavor notes of true chocolate, earth and dairy milk (there was no milk or dairy ingredients in this bar), and very faint spice (although this latter note could have been associated with the orange).*

Pieces of high-quality, candied orange peel with a soft chew complemented this chocolate very nicely. As with all the Mission Chocolate bars sampled this week, Gallardo** has done a wonderful job of highlighting the best of Brazilian flavors with her chocolate.

* Ingredients: Organic cacao, organic sugar, orange peel, cocoa butter
**Arecelia Gallardo grew up in California and spent time making chocolates in the San Francisco Bay Area before moving to Brazil.



Mission Chocolate - Cupuacu 70% Fazenda Camboa: Colheita 2018 (bar) - Oct. 13, 2019

Chocolate of the Day:

Mission Chocolate
Cupuacu 70% Fazenda Camboa: Colheita 2018 (bar)
Chocolate Escuro Com Pedacinhos de Doce Cupuacu
Good +++ - Very Good
Weight: 1.06 oz. (30 g.) / 2.12 oz. (60 g.) in total bar
Calories: 143 calories (per label) in 1/2 bar
Cost: $10.00 (estimate) for 1 bar
Purchased from: Chocolate Covered, San Francisco, CA

Welcome to Day #3 of Chocolate and Brazil Theme Week.

Today's Cupuacu 70% Fazenda Camboa: Colheita 2018 (bar) was from Mission Chocolate* (Sao Paolo, Brazil).

Mission Chocolate founder Arcelia Gallardo highlights flavors from Brazil in her bars.

Today's bar included pieces of cupuacu fruit (Theobroma grandiflorum) that grows in Brazilian rainforests and is a relative of cacao (Theobroma cacao). Cupuacu fruit has more sweet flesh surrounding its seeds (than the minimal white pulp found in cacao pods—which is wonderful nonetheless). And Gallardo's pairing of this delicious fruit with chocolate was magnificent.

The flavor in these small squares of dried cupuacu fruit seemed to shift from guava to bright pineapple to a cross between a mango and a papaya, to a fountain of liquid citrus (sweet tangerine) sunshine. Naturally when a fruit (or any inclusion) is this exciting, there is a danger or overshadowing the chocolate.**

Indeed, the chocolate seemed to shift a bit when combined with its botanical cousin. The base 70% chocolate (made with cacao (Colheita 2018) from Fazenda Camboa in Bahia, Brazil) seemed "lighter" than previous from Misson Chocolate 70% bars tasted this week. It did have a slight dairy milk/milk chocolate feel to it. It had a fleeting very light earth flavor and true chocolate note, and perhaps it was a tiny bit more nutty. However, this latter characteristic could have been an artifact of tasting it with the embedded cupuacu fruit pieces.

Gallardo's Brazil Biomes Project designation(s) on her chocolate bar labels invite consumers to appreciate the diverse environments and cacao growing regions that span a large country like Brazil (or even a large farm like Fazenda Camboa). She chooses ingredients from a specific biome area to highlight in a given bar. (Brazil has six biome areas, i.e. five others apart from the Amazon—probably the best known. Atlantic Rainforest would be another.)

*The company's name, Mission Chocolate, was inspired in part by founder Arcelia Gallardo's stay in the Bay Area when she was working with Dandelion Chocolate in the Mission district of San Francisco, before her move to Brazil.

**Mission Chocolate uses cacao grown in Brazil (from Fazenda Camboa in Bahia). This bar was made with only three ingredients: organic cacao, organic sugar, cupuacu (fruit).

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