Lonohana - Cafe au Lait bar - August 30, 2014

Chocolate of the Day: 

Lonohana Estate Chocolate
Cafe Au Lait bar
Good + - Very Good
Weight: .766 oz. (21.6 g.) / 2.3 oz. (65 g.) in total bar
Calories: 115 calories (estimate) in 1/3 bar
Cost: $14.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: The Chocolate Garage, Palo Alto, CA

Today was Day #2 of Chocolate and Coffee Theme Week.

The Cafe Au Lait bar from Lonohana Estate Chocolate (Honolulu, HI) was crafted from Hawaiian ingredients -- including Lonohana Estate cacao, and made in Honolulu.

Control over the whole tree-to-bar experience gives a maker the opportunity to coax flavors out at different points in the production cycle. It also is a daunting responsibility, in that there are so many points where things can go wrong.

Happily the milk chocolate bar -- made with Maui cane sugar, and adorned with a representation of the Hawaiian islands -- was smooth, rich and quite good, and was full of Ka'u coffee flavor. No coffee grit, but it tasted like finely ground coffee). A bit of Big Island vanilla rounded this out.

You could fly to the islands to pick up one of these bars. Fortunately, I was able to drive a few miles to The Chocolate Garage (in Palo Alto, CA) -- one of the few outlets to carry this line -- to pick one up!

Giraudi - Cremino al Caffe - August 29, 2014

Chocolate of the Day: 

Giraudi
Cremino al Caffe
Very Good
Weight: .7 oz. (19.8 g.) (estimate) for 2 pieces
Calories: 105 calories (estimate) for 2 pieces
Cost: N/A - sample
Purchased from: Cafe Venetia, Palo Alto, CA


Today was Day #1 of Chocolate and Coffee Theme Week.

I don't drink coffee anymore; but if I did, it would taste like these heavenly Cremino al Caffe squares from Giraudi (Torino, Italy).

Cremino al Caffe is an Italian dessert -- a thicker, richer, creamier version of a latte -- with added egg yolks and cream. More whipped dessert than liquid beverage, it is also commonly infused with sweet nutty flavor of hazelnut.

Today's two-layered, Giraudi Cremino al Caffe chocolate squares, true to their name, embodied some of the same characteristics as this Italian dessert. Each square had a luscious, buttery melt and consisted of a wonderfully well balanced blend of chocolate, hazelnut and coffee flavors.

I can't decide which bright orange and royal blue color scheme I liked best today: this Giraudi foil wrapped square, or the beautiful sunset this evening. Both were beautiful.

Alter Eco - Dark Brown Butter bar - Aug. 28, 2014

Chocolate of the Day: 

Alter Eco
Dark Salted Brown Butter bar
Good +
Weight: .564 oz. (16 g.) / 2.82 oz. (80 g.) in total bar
Calories: 91 calories in 1/5 bar
Cost: $4.99 (estimate) for 1 bar
Purchased from: Whole Foods Market

Today was Day #7 of Chocolate and Ecuador Theme Week.

This Dark Chocolate Salted Brown Butter bar from Alter Eco (San Francisco, CA*) was made with 70% organic, Fair Trade certified (Nacional Forastero) Ecuadorian cacao beans and sweet pastured butter.

It had a slight candy caramel corn aroma. It was, as expected, buttery and silky smooth, and a touch of fleur de sel de Guerande gave this chocolate helped balance the sweetness. I might even try this bar with some additional salt next time, in the form of toasted, savory (garlic rosemary or smoked salt) nuts.

The bar was soy free, gluten free, "No GMO" and contained no artificial flavors, and no emulsifiers.

*Made in Switzerland, Distributed by Alter Eco (Americas) 

Chocolat Bonnat - Equateur bar - Aug. 27, 2014

Chocolate of the Day: 

Chocolat Bonnat / Bonnat Chocolatier
Dark Chocolate Equateur bar
Good ++ - Very Good
Weight: 1.16 oz. (33 g.) / 3.5 oz. (99 g.) in total bar
Calories: 174 calories (estimate) in 1/3 bar
Cost: $14.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: The Chocolate Garage, Palo Alto, CA

Today was Day #6 of Chocolate and Ecuador Theme Week.

This Equateur bar from Bonnat (Voiron, Isere, France) had a pleasing deep chocolate aroma, and the pieces broke off with a well-tempered, hard snap.

This three-ingredient (cocoa, cocoa butter and sugar) dark chocolate (75% cocoa) bar had an exceptionally buttery smooth texture and melt, and maintained a very consistent, well balanced acid-earth, classic dark chocolate flavor, with a light hint of floral honey, throughout the tasting experience.

Chocolat Bonnat is one of the oldest chocolate companies operating today in France. The company still produces its signature praline chocolates (as well as bars), and has been passed from "father to son since 1884" -- an impressive feat for any business.

Ritual Chocolate - Balao 75 percent sample - August 25, 2014

Chocolate of the Day: 

Ritual Chocolate
Balao 75% (Ecuador)
Good++
Weight: .3 oz. (8.5 g.) (estimate) for 1 sample packet
Calories: 45 calories (estimate) for 1 packet
Cost: N/A - sample packet
Purchased from: N/A - sample packet

Today was Day #5 of Chocolate and Ecuador Theme Week.

www.ritualchocolate.com

I love the naturally occurring floral flavor notes in cacao from Ecuador. This Balao 75 percent sample, crafted with cacao from the Camino Verde farm in Ecuador, by Ritual Chocolate (Denver, CO), had it.

Today's dark chocolate wafer-thin sample round, the perfect shape and thickness for accessing/tasting flavors, was quite mild otherwise, and had a delicious almost buttery smoothness and melt.

Dark chocolate bars with only two or three ingredients -- this one was made with cacao and organic cane sugar, that's it -- spotlight a chocolate makers skills (or inexperience) like nothing else. There is nowhere to hide if the ferment or the temper went awry. Happily, this chocolate just left me full of appreciation. Some may like a more robust flavor profile and there are plenty of other dark bars that would be happy to oblige; however, floral notes, should they be present, will most likely be lost with these chocolate bars.

Pictured at right is the official Balao 75 percent bar available online, from www.ritualchocolate.com.

Pacari - Piura Quemazon bar - Aug. 25, 2014

Chocolate of the Day: 

Pacari Chocolate
Piura Quemazon - Single Region bar
Good + - Very Good
Weight: .352 oz. (10 g.) / 1.76 oz. (50 g.) total bar
Calories: 60 calories (estimate, per label) in 1/5 bar
Cost: N/A - sample
Purchased from: N/A - sample

Bienvenidos (Welcome) to Day #4 of Chocolate and Ecuador Theme Week.

I would be remiss if I had an Ecuador-themed chocolate week and didn't include an offering from Pacari Chocolate (Quito, Ecuador), a family-owned business that makes chocolate from tree-to-bar in Ecuador -- with one or two intriguing exceptions, such as today's bar.

This dark chocolate (70% cacao) bar was made by Pacari, with Piura Quemazon cacao from the Piura region of northwest Peru, adjacent to Ecuador. This bar was also an International Chocolate Awards winner (Americas Gold in 2012 and World Gold in 2013).

The bar had a hard snap and smooth texture. It was a lighter, reddish brown in color (almost closer to a milk chocolate bar in appearance). It possessed a seductively complex and subtle flavor profile, with fruit, floral, earth/forest and smoke notes, and a very faint hint of pleasant licorice at the end in one bite I sampled. (This latter note disappeared in later bites.) The bar was soy free (it contained sunflower lecithin rather than soy lecithin), gluten free and certified organic and kosher.

Ritter Sport - Fine Extra Dark Chocolate bar - Aug. 24, 2014

Chocolate of the Day:

Alfred E. Ritter GmbH
Ritter Sport - Fine Extra Dark Chocolate bar
Good
Weight: .88 oz. (25 g.) / 3.5 oz. (100 g.) total bar
Calories: 138 calories (estimate) in 4 squares
Cost: $2.95 for 1 bar
Purchased from: (information lost)


Willkommen (Welcome) to Day #3 of Chocolate and Ecuador Theme Week.

The Ritter Sport line of chocolate bars from Germany, available with hazelnuts, corn flakes, marzipan, praline, yogurt, and other flavors, are sold in many stores in the U.S. I'd had several of these bars before in previous years.

Today, however, I thought I'd shake things up (fitting, as I was woken up by an earthquake this morning), and went back to basics. I enjoyed a Ritter Sport dark chocolate bar, without flavor inclusions, made "with fine cacao from Ecuador." This bar had been squirreled away in my chocolate vault for just this occasion.

This "Noir Extra fin" chocolate was smooth, dark and bittersweet, a good basic dark bar.