Original Beans - Beni Wild 66%, Beni Amazon, Bolivia (bar) - Oct. 27, 2023

Chocolate of the Day

Original Beans
Beni Wild 66%, Beni Amazon, Bolivia
Good +++ - Very Good
Weight: 1.23 oz. (35 g.) / 2.47 oz. (70 g.) in total bar
Calories: 198 calories in 1/2 bar
Cost: $7.50 (estimate) + shipping for 1 bar
Purchased from: Bar and Cocoa, online order 

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

Today's Original Beans Beni Wild 66%, Beni Amazon, Bolivia (bar) was made in Switzerland. (Original Beans is based in Amsterdam, NL.)

This chocolate had a wonderful and complex aroma. Notes included: cacao with floral (honey), faint molasses/brown sugar; very faint fleeting freshly baked breads (yeast bread and steamed Boston brown bread with cornmeal, molasses and raisins); fruit (dried peach); very faint, fleeting jungle (loam/peat); and other trace sweet green botanicals.

The texture was smooth, uniform and creamy. (It likely would have been even creamier; but I was enjoying this chocolate after the expiration date.)

Flavor notes for this 66% Bolivia bar included: vibrant and complex, naturally sweet flavors. Many of these flavors were similar to the complex and varied aroma notes above. Honeyed floral notes and peach (fruit) were joined by a lovely fleeting ripe, sweet blackberry flavor note. 

It's been a long time since chocolate made me feel so transported (to a rain forest where I could imagine scents, movements and sounds among the stillness). The "fleeting" notes I mentioned seemed almost alive. One appeared and disappeared up in a forest canopy; another shimmered briefly between some lush plants between trees. I could almost hear muted bird calls and the rustling of wildlife. 

This special chocolate was made from the "rarest of the rare" Beniano wild cacao beans from the Beni* Amazon area of Bolivia. It was low in bitterness and acidity, well balanced, and wonderfully blessed with natural wild cacao flavors.

Thank you to Original Beans for making this tasting experience possible.

Original Beans Tasting Notes: "Hints of floral honey, apricot and jasmine tea..."

Ingredients: Cacao mass*, raw cane sugar*, cacao butter*. Cacao solids: 66% minimum. (*Certified Organic)

Allergen-related information: (No allergens listed on label.) "Certified Organic, Vegan, Dark"

*The Beni River is a major tributary of the Amazon River that originates in the Bolivian Andes. It is home to ancient forests, rare species of cacao and other plants, and indigenous peoples.

Original Beans - Cusco 100% Sacred Cusco Valley, Peru (bar) - Feb. 12, 2022

Chocolate of the Day

Original Beans
Cusco 100% - "Mighty" Sacred Cusco Valley, Peru (bar)
Good +
Weight: 1.23 oz. (35 g.) / 2.46 oz. (70 g.) in total bar
Calories: 183 calories in 1/2 bar
Cost: $7.50 (estimate) for 1 bar
Purchased from: Bar and Cocoa, online order

Buenos tardes (good afternoon) and welcome to Day #9 of 100% Cacao Theme Week, and Day #4 of Chocolate and Peru Theme Week.

Today's Organic Cusco 100% - "Mighty" Sacred Cusco Valley, Peru bar (made in Switzerland) was from Original Beans (Amsterdam, NL). The Chuncho cacao used to make this ultra-dark bar hailed from an area not far from the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu.* 

Aroma notes for this 100% cacao chocolate included: green, and slightly tart/astringent ripe fruit (pink grapefruit), fermented (almost vinegary, sweet-sour) stone fruit (cherry, plum).

This chocolate had a deep, dense roasted cacao dark chocolate flavor with a thick (nut butter) consistency and relatively slow buttery melt (on a cool day). 

There were also classic bittersweet chocolate chip and sustained faint tart, diffused acidic, slightly sour fruit notes in the background that lingered a bit into the finish.

Maker's tasting notes: "Tastes of dried flowers and grass mark the absolute altitude of this rarest of rare Chunco cacao..."

Ingredients: 100% cacao mass

Allergen-related information: (No information found on package.) 

* Original Beans founder and chief grower, Philipp Kauffmann, embraces regenerative (e.g. one tree is planted in the rainforest for every bar sold) and fair trade practices. Since founding the company in 2008, Kauffmann has worked with growers and sought out the "rarest and fairest" cacaos in select regions in South America (Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia), Mexico and Africa (Tanzania, Congo DR).

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 

Original Beans - Zoque 88% "Spirited" Dark Chocolate (bar) - Mar. 27, 2020

Chocolate of the Day: 

Original Beans B.V. 

Zoque 88% "Spirited" Dark Chocolate (bar)

Good + - Good ++

Weight: 1.23 oz. (35 g.) / 2.46 oz. (70 g.) in total bar

Calories: 205 calories in 1/2 bar

Cost: $7.95 for 1 bar

Purchased from: Chocosphere.com, online order

Hola y bienvenidos (Hello and welcome) to Day #4 of Chocolate and Mexico Theme Week.

Today's Zoque 88% "Spirited" Selva Zoque, Mexico, Dark, Organic, Vegan (bar) was from Original Beans B.V. (Amsterdam, The Netherlands). This chocolate had bold earthy, dried fruit (dried fig, dried banana), and slightly bitter flavor and finish. I enjoyed the lack of sugar; although some might like a pinch more cane sugar to brighten this up. Tasting notes on the package read: tropical lychee and coconut.

The ultra-dark chocolate was made using Tabasqueño cacao, and supports local Zoque and Tzotzil tribes--who live largely in the states of Tabasco and Chiapas in Mexico, and who have had some relationship with cacao for approximately 4,000 years.

Original Beans - Piura Porcelana 75% bar - June 30, 2019

Chocolate of the Day: 

Original Beans
Piura Porcelana 75% bar
Good + - Good ++
Weight: 1.23 oz. (35 g.) /2.46 oz. (70 g.) in total bar
Calories:  calories in 1/2 bar
Cost: $7.95 (estimate) for 1 bar
Purchased from: Chocosphere.com

Welcome to Day #6 of Chocolate and Peruvian Superfoods Theme Week.

Today's Piura Porcelana 75% bar from Original Beans (Amsterdam) was made in Switzerland. It was made using with treasured "white" Porcelana (Piura Valley, Peru) cacao beans from the Piura Valley or Peru.

The inside of the Porcelana cacao seed (bean) is creamy white (instead of the more common purple and white) and these beans are prized for their delicate, complex flavor.

The bar had light, balanced fruit (berries, black currant), faint forest floor earthiness and fermentation notes. It had a smooth dark chocolate melt and taste, with balanced blackberry, black raspberry, black currant and red grape flavor notes. The fruit was subtle, full and round, complex and lower in acidity than most "bright" berry/fruit chocolate.

The flavor finish had a very subtle but long tail. It tapered off but then had a small fruit blip late in the curve, and a very slight earthiness even later.

The makers tasting notes described the flavor as having: lime, raspberry and pecan notes.

Also important to Original Beans founder, Philipp Kauffman, that the origin be honored for its treasured resources, like the Peruvian butterflies part of today's packaging design. Kauffman has pledged to plant one tree for every bar sold "...preserving some of the Earth's rarest places."

More superfoods...
Peruvian cacao could certainly be described as a superfood. A lot of people are using that term to market exotic foods with high nutritional value. But, of course, flavor and texture of the food in question are important too. And high-quality, bean-to-bar chocolate, like today's three ingredient bar (cacao mass, raw cane sugar and cocoa butter) gets high marks in all these areas.

Also consumed today was an Antioxidant Sweet Berry powdered mix from Amazing Grass (Newport Beach, CA), stirred into a glass of water.

The mix contained a variety of fruit and vegetable ingredients, green tea, as well as maca (discussed earlier this week) and camu camu* powders.

It may not have been as yummy as today's chocolate, but the company does produce offer offerings with cacao, as well as a convenient way to hydrate with a beverage full of vitamins and minerals, particularly if you have a tough time eating your greens before they wilt in your fridge.

*Camu Camu is an Amazonian, tart fruit high in Vitamin C. It looks like a bit like a large cherry plum or a miniature red apple in photos.

Original Beans - Femmes de Virunga 55% bar - May 16, 2017

Chocolate of the Day: 

Original Beans
Femmes de Virunga 55% bar
Good ++
Weight: .82 oz. (23.3 g.) / 2.46 oz. (70 g.) in total bar
Calories: 123 calories (guesstimate) in 1/3 bar
Cost: $missing information
Purchased from: The Chocolate Garage, Palo Alto, CA

Welcome to Day #13 of Chocolate and Africa Theme Weeks. We've been taking a virtual trip, from east to west, across this large continent. Yesterday we were in Uganda, and today, we are in the Congo.

Today we move to Eastern Congo (D.R.), with this Femmes del Virunga 55% organic milk chocolate bar from Original Beans (Amsterdam).*

This organic milk chocolate bar was—in contrast to yesterday's ultra-dark 80% Uganda bar—fruity, light, sweet, and almost "fluffy." It was a very tasty, creamy milk chocolate bar.

The mission of the makers at Original Beans was not only to produce a fine, organic milk chocolate bar, but also to support women cacao farmers and to preserve "Africa's oldest nature park, Eastern Congo (D.R.)."

*Original Beans is based in Amsterdam, and this bar was made in Switzerland.

Original Beans - Esmeraldas Milk bar - June 9, 2014

Chocolate of the Day: 

Original Beans
Esmeraldas Milk 42% bar
Good ++
Weight: 2.46 oz. (70 g.) in total bar
Calories: 399 calories in 1 bar
Cost: $8.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: The Chocolate Garage, Palo Alto, CA

Bienvenidos al primer dia de Chocolate y Ecuador semana. (Welcome to the first day of Chocolate and Ecuador Theme Week!)

Today's bar was made from cacao beans that hailed from the Pacific Rainforest in the Esmeraldas Province of northwestern Ecuador.

The Esmeraldas Milk 42% bar from Original Beans (Amsterdam, Netherlands) was actually made in Switzerland, a country where they know a thing or two about conching chocolate until it's rich, creamy and smooth. (In this case, the cocoa mass (ground cacao beans), was conched for 16 hours.)

When I first broke off a piece of this bar, I could smell the aroma of freshly roasted cacao beans. What followed was a velvety smooth bar with complex almost burnt caramel flavor, slightly bitter but well balanced with other flavor notes. I didn't taste a lot of bright red fruit, but there were "summer fruit" notes in this bar. All in all this flavorful, Certified Organic, Gluten Free and Vegan milk chocolate bar was remarkably easy to finish.

Original Beans, the company, also helps to replant trees and encourage sustainable practices.

ChocolateBet: July 30, 2009

Chocolate of the Day:

2/3 bar
Original Beans
Cru Virunga, D.R. Congo - 70% cacao: 20-hour conch
Very Good +
Weight: 2.37 oz. (66.6 g.)/3.57 oz. (100 g.) total bar
Calories: ~ 357 calories (estimate)
Cost: $16.00
Purchased from: Chocolate Covered, in San Francisco, CA

Original Beans bars represent an example of chocolate for a good cause. If you buy a bar, you get information on a (cacao) tree that will be planted, possibly in an area that is being reforested (or restored, after the land has been clear cut).

I'm guessing the company's relationships with farmers (co-ops) in various countries, the tree planting (and the use of small batches and rarer beans) help explain the high price; although the chocolate is rich and smooth, and appears to be very high-quality chocolate.

The bean-to-bar makers carefully process their cacao beans to arrive at "a crisp snap and a luscious melt with vivid fruit notes."