Friday, May 1, 2020

Sugar Love Chocolates - Colombian 70% Dark Chocolate (bar) - May 1, 2020

Chocolate of the Day: 

Sugar Love Chocolates
Colombian 70% Dark Chocolate (bar)
Good +
Weight: 1.4 oz. (40 g.) in total bar
Calories: 210 calories (estimate) in 1 bar
Cost: $3.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Sugar Love Chocolates, Reno, NV

Welcome to Day #1 of Chocolate and Colombia Theme Week.

Today's Colombian 70% Dark Chocolate (bar) was from Sugar Love Chocolates (Reno, NV). I was able to visit this cozy chocolate shop that carried an assortment of truffles/filled chocolates and bars. It was located in the basement level of a smartly renovated U.S. Post Office building (from the 1930s) along with a handful of other artisan shops in downtown Reno.

There was something very light and pleasant about this 70% dark chocolate, a hint of chocolate cream pie or chocolate cake. Even the texture had a whipped and fluffy dark chocolate mousse taste and texture. (That texture might have been in part due to the soy lecithin.)

Ingredients: cocoa bean (cocoa liquor and cocoa butter), cane sugar, soy lecithin

Original Beans - Arhuaco Businchari 82% Colombia bar - Apri. 30, 2020

Chocolate of the Day: 

Original Beans
Arhuaco Businchari 82% Colombia bar
Good - Good +
Weight: 2.46 oz. (70 g.) in total bar
Calories: 401.8 calories in 1 bar
Cost: $7.95 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Chocosphere.com, online order

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

Today's Arhuaco Businchari 82% Colombia bar from Original Beans (Amsterdam) was made in Switzerland, using "select tribal cacao."

Original Beans supports "replenishing biodiverse forests instead of destroying them." The notion of a regenerative society able to live sustainably is appealing. Their "One Bar: One Tree" program supports planting trees. (A code included on the package of each bar, when input, takes you to a website/page, where you can track where a tree is being planted that corresponds to your purchase.)

For those who don't like overly sweet dark chocolate, this is your lucky day. This attractively packaged bar had a faint earthy charcoal* and dark chocolate aroma, the taste of a 90+ percent cacao bar, and a uniform, balanced bitterness. The texture was smooth and the chocolate had a lingering but clean finish. No light fruity floral notes in this bar. And that may be fine. Sometimes extra dark flavor like this is satisfying and almost refreshing.

As with some bottles of bold or tannic red wine, sometimes opening and letting a product sit, or re-tasting over time, reveals more subtle flavors. Re-tasting this bar after an hour revealed a trace of green/floral note and it tasted less bitter (relatively sweeter) and more well rounded.

*Or this batch could have been exposed to a little bit of burning wood or charcoal smoke. It's impossible to tell. Either way, this bar was a good counterpoint to overly sweet chocolate, and if the purchase of this bar helps support the Arhuaco (aka Arawak) native people/farmers who are trying to protect the Sierra Nevada (national park) in Colombia, all the better.

Maker's notes: "Heights of sweet spice, liquorice and sesame rise gently in this ultra rare chocolate made according to ancient Arhuaco tribal traditions that are designed to maintain the world's natural hamony."

Ingredients: cacao mass, organic raw cane sugar 


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