Chocolate of the Day
Fossa Chocolate Pte Ltd
70% Dark Mava Ottange Madagascar (bar)
Good ++ - Good +++
Weight: 1.76 oz. (50 g.) in total bar
Calories: 274 calories in 1 bar
Cost: $12.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Chocolate Covered, San Francisco, CA
Welcome to Day #3 of Chocolate and Madagascar Theme Week.
Today's 70% Dark Mava Ottange Madagascar (bar) was crafted by Fossa Chocolate in Singapore.
Fossa is known for small-batch chocolate(s) with different tea inclusions. (Their oolong tea infused bars are especially nice.) Almost all their offerings I've sampled have had a subtle sophistication about them.*
This chocolate was made using cacao from the Sambirano Valley area in northwestern Madagascar, a region known for its cacao. Most of the Madagascar bars this week share this same origin.**
The cacao beans in this bar were from the MAVA Plantation--that encompasses eight different farms, including the Ottange Farm.
The aroma of this vegan, gluten-free bar had a softly sweet, slightly fragrant (hot cocoa, hot drinking chocolate) with faint fruit, floral (neroli), spice, and almost undetectable green notes.
The chocolate had a uniformly smooth melt and texture and was made using cacao from the MAVA Plantation that contains several different farms, including the Ottange Farm.
The Dance of the Seven Citrus Veils
The taste fulfilled on the promise hinted at in the aroma notes. It was as if I "heard" a dance party happening, on the other side of a set of large wooden doors. And, after the first bite of this chocolate, those doors were suddenly thrown open and I was invited to join the party.
My senses were suddenly illuminated with a sweet-tart candied citrus peel brightness. Flavors shimmered and shifted around me within a bright hemisphere of light. These flavors were mostly within the citrus spectrum, including ripe tangerine, sweet orange, tangelo, Mandarin orange, Valencia orange, Navel orange and kumquat--and pure sunshine and sugar.
It was hard to pin down the other more subtle flavor elements in the midst of the dance of a seven citrus veils. But they included a faint flickering of forest/earth and chocolate malted milk powder.
All this fun, from only two-ingredients: cacao and cane sugar. Except for the bright citrus headlights, this is one of the most civilized, and sweetest, Madagascar ride I've taken in a few years. The 70% cacao landed closer to a 60-65% cacao bar on my palette, in part due to its bright sweetness.
Fossa tasting notes read as follows: "orange, malt, roasted nuts."
Ingredients: Cacao, cane sugar
*Yes, that included Fossa's limited edition "Duck Shit" Dancong Tea Chocolate bar that had a faint, but balanced, grassy flavor note that recalled a marshy area where you might see ducks dabbling. (No actual duck contributions were involved in the making of this bar; so there's no need to be squeamish.)
**Decades ago, cacao from Bertil Akesson's family plantation launched many of the first Madagascar craft chocolate bars in the U.S. Akesson became one of the first well-respected suppliers to provision the new wave of new bean-to-bar makers with single origin beans.
Other "made in country" bars/chocolates in Madagascar worthy of note include those from Chocolaterie Robert SA.
Beyond Good (formerly Madecasse), a cocoa and vanilla company with direct ties to Madagascar (based in Brooklyn, NY), was started in 2006 by two Peace Corps volunteers. Madecasse chocolate bars were some of the first "Madagascar" bars I can remember sampling when I started Chocolate Banquet in that same year.
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