Svenska Kakao - Dominican Republic, Oko Caribe 2021 70% Harvest (bar) - May 27, 2023

Chocolate of the Day

Svenska Kakao

Dominican Republic, Oko Caribe, 2021 70% Cacao (bar)

Good ++ - Good +++
Weight: .88 oz. (25 g.) / 1.76 oz. (50 g.) in total bar
Calories: 137 calories in 1/2 bar
Cost: $12.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Chocolate Covered, San Francisco, CA

Welcome to Day #4 of Chocolate and Dominican Republic Theme Week.

Today's Dominican Republic, Oko Caribe (2021 Harvest) 70% Cacao (bar) was from Svenska Kakao (Osterlen, Sweden). 

Svenska Kakao (Swedish Cacao) is small, family owned chocolate maker located in a red brick building (former school house) built in 1893 near the Baltic Sea. Their goal is to highlight the flavors found in cacao worldwide. They "roast their cacao beans at low temperatures, process minimally and add no unnecessary ingredients."

Aroma notes for today's bar--made with cacao produced by Oko Caribe in the Dominican Republic--included: dark chocolate (iron-rich dried fruits (raisin, plum, berry); faint molasses; faint, fleeting licorice; light green botanical; and barely there graham cracker). Within a five-minute smelling and tasting span other interesting (appealing) dark chocolate and very faint (not-undesirable) light fermentation notes flickered by as well.

The melt was nice; the texture had a very faint fruit astringency/dryness to it.

Flavor notes included nuanced dark chocolate with dried fruit (pear, berry, raisin), honey, sweet green and true chocolate (dark chocolate torte, pudding), notes.

Today's 70% DR dark chocolate was a well-crafted, shape-shifter, with interesting, well-balanced complexity and aroma and flavor notes. (One of my favorite kinds of chocolate to taste.) All the more impressive when one remembers all these nuances were from just two ingredients: cacao beans and sugar. 

Maker's tasting notes: "Dark chocolate with balanced notes of honey, red berries and nuts."

Ingredients: Cacao beans, cane sugar. Cacao: 70% 

Allergen-related information: "May contain traces of nuts and milk."