Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Soklet - Coconut Crunch - 60% Coconut Milk Chocolate (bar) - Feb. 9, 2021

Chocolate of the Day

Soklet 
Coconut Crunch - 60% Coconut Milk Chocolate (bar)
Good 
Weight: 1.76 oz. (50 g.) in total bar
Calories: 270 calories in 1 bar
Cost: $8.00 (+ shipping) for 1 bar
Purchased from: Bar and Cocoa, online order

Welcome to Day #11 of Chocolate and Coconut Theme Week, and Day #1 of Chocolate and India Theme Week. 

Today's Soklet (pronounced 'sohk let) Coconut Crunch 60% Coconut Milk Chocolate bar was made from tree to bar in India, manufactured by Regal Foods and Beverages (Pollachi, Tamil Nadu, India). 

Happily, in the past decade more single origin bars made with Indian cacao have become available in the U.S., including a series of Soklet bars featured this week. 

Cacao is grown in four southern states in India: Andhra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala--typically with other crops (e.g. palm and coconut trees) that can provide the smaller cacao trees with some shade. The cacao used to make this bar was grown in the foothills of the Anamalai(s) (also known as the Elephant Mountains) in Tamil Nadu.

This vegan milk chocolate bar had a pleasant aroma with coconut rice pudding, light sweet (coconut palm sugar/brown sugar/light molasses) and chocolate notes. 

It was a polite 60% chocolate, very low in fruit acidity and bitterness. And the bar was not overly sweet (thank you). 

This chocolate had a bit of an oxidized, cereal box/malt flavor--a taste that can develop during the cacao fermentation process--with sweet chocolate, faint floral honey, light coconut milk, nutty, and barely detectable spice notes (whispers of cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and saffron).

I'm guessing the maker(s) either used a mild cacao variety, or the coconut milk (and the constellation of tiny, embedded coconut flakes) effectively neutralized any strong cacao flavors.* (There was, however, a slight uptick of nutty cocoa flavor a minute or two into the finish.)

Ingredients: Cacao beans, cacao butter, coconut sugar, dehydrated coconut milk powder.

*In fairness to all concerned, when I opened the well-sealed inner gold packaging, it looked like there may have been some exposure to heat at some point during the shipping process, something that can influence the flavor a bit.



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