Chocolate of the Day
One One Cacao
Portland 71% dark chocolate (bar)
Good ++
Weight: .35 oz. (10 g.) (estimate) in 1 sample bar
Calories: 54 calories (estimate) in 1 sample bar
Cost: Part of a $53 six-bar tasting kit + tasting experience
Purchased from: Happy Chocolate Experiences, Palo Alto, CA
Welcome to Day #4 of Chocolate and Jamaica Theme Week.
Today's Portland 71% sample bar from One One Cacao* (Kingston Parish, Jamaica) was part of a six-bar sample pack + online tasting experience. The chocolate selection (and conversation between the maker and a moderator) allowed tasters to experience a virtual tour of Jamaica through the lens of cacao. The chocolates were made from cacao grown in four different Jamaican parishes.
Today's virtual stop? The Portland Parish of Jamaica, located north/northeast of Kingston, an area that includes the famed Blue Mountains National Park where coffee and cacao are grown.
The tasting and virtual travel this week was made possible by Sunita de Tourreil** at Happy Chocolate Experiences. As always, her knowledge and interaction with makers, in this case Nick Davis and Marta at One One Cacao, during the online tasting experience was enjoyable and valuable. (Check out her site (link above) for information about a planned chocolate trip to Jamaica later in 2022.)
Portland 71% bar
Aroma notes for today's dark tasting square included: cocoa, very faint spice and faint savory (vegetable and freshly baked potato bread).
This chocolate had a rich chocolate taste and texture with a background whisper of fruit acidity/astringency. The remaining flavor notes were similar to the aroma notes above.
Re-tasting this Portland 71% bar (after the chocolate had been out of the packet for 5-7 minutes on a relatively warm morning) revealed subtle bittersweet lime flower/floral and balanced dark earth notes--adding enjoyable flavor and complexity. (The initial very faint vegetable/potato bread note I associated with fermentation was gone.)
Occasionally layered flavor shifts happen when you let certain chocolates "breathe" for a few minutes after they're unwrapped from a sealed package--as you might do for certain red wines before serving. Or when you re-taste another piece of the same bar (due to changes in your mouth chemistry as well as in volatile chocolate aroma elements reacting to air/oxygen, heat and/or light).
As with other One One Cacao Jamaica bars this week, the sweetness level for today's 71% bar, felt just right.
Ingredients: (Not listed on small sample bar packet)
Allergen-related information: (None listed on small sample bar packet)
* The company name One One Cacao was inspired by an old Jamaican proverb: "One one cocoa, full basket" that conveys the notion that little by little, cocoa pods and beans fill baskets, baskets are filled, and goals can be met.
**Sunita previously founded The Chocolate Garage in Palo Alto, CA. Happy Chocolate Experiences provides windows into happy cacao--places, makers and destinations--and of course wonderful chocolate.
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