Xocolatl de David - Foie Gras 68% Bolivia bar - Oct. 17, 2016

Chocolate of the Day: 

Xocolatl de David
Foie Gras Chocolate 68 percent cacao Bolivia bar
Good ++
Weight: .55 oz. (15.5 g.) / 2.2 oz. (62 g.) in total bar
Calories: 82.5 calories (estimate) in 1/4 bar
Cost: $ for 1/4 bar
Purchased from: Fog City News, San Francisco, CA

Welcome to Day #5 of And Now for Something Completely Different Theme Week.

Today I tried a Foie Gras 68 percent Bolivia chocolate bar from Xocolatl de David (Portland, OR).

This bar had a very slight foie gras aroma, and a creamy melt. The texture was smooth. The bar had a slightly salty, savory flavor; but the actual flavor inclusion (foie gras) may be difficult to guess for tasters.

Xocolatl de David, known for its creative stable of savory bars, also offers a "Foietella" spread with chocolate.

Thank you to Adam and the team at Fog City News (San Francisco, CA) for their curated selection of chocolates and for their help in finding unique bars for this week.

*Foie gras is a savory spread made from goose or duck liver and sometimes includes chopped pistachio nuts. Foie gras made by traditional methods (that involve "force-feeding" birds to fatten up their liver) is outlawed in California.

Nathan Miller Chocolate - 45% Buttermilk bar - Oct. 16, 2016

Chocolate of the Day: 

Nathan Miller Chocolate
45 percent Buttermilk bar
Good +++ - Very Good
Weight: 1 oz. (28.3 g.) / 2 oz. (56.6 g.) in total bar
Calories: 150 calories (estimate) in 1/2 bar
Cost: $9.50 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Chocolate Covered, San Francisco, CA

Greetings and Welcome to Day #4 of And Now for Something Completely Different Theme Week.

Today's unique twist on a milk chocolate bar was the incorporation of buttermilk.

Nathan Miller, a successful pastry and dessert chef, started making chocolate in Boulder, and later set up shop in the Amish country of Pennsylvania. Miller and team have been busy producing chocolate bars from single origin cacao beans. Some of his award winning bars contain flavor inclusions, and some don't.

The 45 percent Buttermilk Chocolate bar from Nathan Miller Chocolate (Chambersburg, PA), was a flavorful blend of pleasant surprises.

Swaddled in bright pink lokta paper from Nepal and light blue foil, this bar smelled like chocolate brownie with very subtle hints of salt and smoke.* And at one point, I thought I tasted a slightly floral note. The chocolate had more complex, bold character and flavor than most milk chocolate bars—which I liked. The base chocolate was made from Oko Caribe Direct Trade, Organic Hispaniola cacao (from the Dominican Republic).

The organic buttermilk brought out a richer, bolder flavor with a slightly salty tang, that I enjoyed.

Disclaimer:
I really like brownies, salt, smokey* umami flavors and buttermilk. So, I'll likely appreciate this bar more than most. Most critics consider any smokey flavor in cacao to be a defect.

*A smokey flavor can come about in a few different ways. Following fermentation, cacao beans are spread out to dry on flats, or on the ground. In case of rain, beans might be in (or moved to) a covered area, and a fire might be used to help heat and dry cacao. Or smoke may waft in from a nearby cooking fire. In some cases, smoke may cover up less desirable flavors.

Naive - Porcini Organic Dark-Milk Chocolate bar - Oct. 15, 2016

Chocolate of the Day: 

Chocolate Naive
Porcini - Organic Dark-Milk Chocolate bar
Good +++
Weight: .97 oz. (27.5 g.) / 1.94 oz. (55 g.) in total bar
Calories: 146 calories (estimate) in 1/2 bar
Cost: $9.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Chocolate Covered, San Francisco, CA

Welcome to Day #3 of And Now for Something Completely Different Theme Week.

Making bean-to-bar, small batch chocolate is challenging enough. However, for a creative and persistent few, experimenting with flavor inclusions in chocolate is the next step, after mastering the technical art of crafting chocolate from scratch (if that's possible).

Today I sampled another unique bar from Chocolate Naive (Rudamina, Lithuania)—a bar made with porcini mushrooms. The first sentence on the back of this package read: "Lithuanians love their mushrooms - that is a fact." Porcini mushrooms are highly valued by mushroom hunters. Each culture seems to have its own king of all mushrooms, and in Lithuania, it may well be the wild porcini.

Chocolate, can be successfully incorporated into both sweet and savory edibles, and vice versa—if properly executed. Happily, this bar was very well balanced and well made.

The Chocolate Naive milk bar was made with Tanzanian cacao and porcini mushrooms; and, as you might expect, the chocolate had an earthy mushroom/umami* aroma and flavor.

Freeze-dried porcini mushrooms were listed as an ingredient that was incorporated into today's bar. The chocolate was very smooth, with a creamy melt and mouthfeel; and I couldn't detect any bits of anything. (Perhaps milk or cream was infused with these mushrooms in advance. I don't know.)

The bar had a pleasant, lingering, tasty mushroom soup finish.

*Umami is a Japanese term that, roughly translated into English, means "pleasant savory flavor." Often called the fifth flavor, umami foods such as meats, vegetables, cheeses, mushrooms, seaweed, and ripe tomatoes. These foods typically contain higher amounts of glutamate, a way to measure umami.

Domori - Cioccolato Al Latte D'Asino bar - Oct. 14, 2106

Chocolate of the Day: 

Domori
Cioccolato Al Latte D'Asino (Donkey's Milk bar)
Good ++
Weight: .44 oz. (12.5 g.) / .88 oz. (25 g.) in total bar
Calories: 66 calories (estimate) in 1/2 bar
Cost: $9.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Chocolate Covered, San Francisco, CA

Welcome to Day #2 of And Now for Something Completely Different* Theme Week.

What do Pliny the Elder, Hippocrates, Cleopatra and Pope Francis have in common?

They've all either expounded on the benefits of, or experienced benefits first-hand from, donkey's milk. Cleopatra took baths in donkey's milk which was/is said to benefit the skin. And Pope Francis apparently was fed a supplement made with donkey's milk when he was an infant.

Well, it's not everyday that you get to try a milk chocolate bar made with donkey's milk. And, where did I find such an odd treasure? At Chocolate Covered (San Francisco, CA) of course. This tiny shop is one of a few places in the Bay Area to carry unusual, high-quality chocolate items that also taste good.


Today's Cioccolato Al Latte D'Asino (Donkey's Milk) Cacao Criollo bar was made by Domori (None (near Turin), Italy).**

This 45 percent bar was quite sweet; but even so, the initial aroma and flavor contained something unique, but it was hard to characterize. I expected a slightly gamey flavor, but that wasn't it.

However, after the first few nibbles, the unidentified flavor softened and brightened to a slightly fruity, rich caramel, and continued to yield interesting caramel and dulce de leche notes—due in part to high-quality Criollo cacao. The bar had a creamy melt and texture, and was well balanced and tempered for a milk bar. The finish tailed off gently and left no real aftertaste.

*For those old enough to remember, the phrase "And now for something completely different" was sometimes uttered by narrator John Cleese, one of several comic performers, who appeared on the British television show "Monty Python's Flying Circus"—as an interlude between bizarre and outrageous skits or stories. 

**Domori has been part of the Illy Group since 2006.

Chocolate Naive - Hops Organic Dark bar - Oct. 13, 2016

Chocolate of the Day: 

Naive
Hops Organic Dark Chocolate bar
Good +++
Weight: .646 oz. (18.3 g.) / 1.94 oz. (55 g.) in total bar
Calories: 97 calories (estimate) in 1/3 bar
Cost: $8.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Chocolate Covered, San Francisco, CA

Welcome to Day #1 of And Now for Something Completely Different Theme Week.

We kick off this unique week with a Hops Organic Dark Chocolate bar from Chocolate Naive (Rudamina, Lithuania).

Chocolate Naive head, Domantas Uzpalis, makes bean to bar chocolate in a small town in Eastern Lithuania, with similar high standards held by small batch chocolate makers worldwide.

Today's Hops Organic, Dark Chocolate bar tasted a bit beer-like and was part of the company's "Back to the Origins" collection. It was relatively smooth and creamy in texture.

The 67 percent bar had the faint aroma of a malty, frothy beer, and an interesting flavor ride with pleasant flickerings of light bitterness from the hops.

Blending two edibles that people feel passionate about—craft chocolate and hops/beer—may have been risky. Chocolate fans and beer fans may have felt that one flavor might defile the other. But, for those who want to try an artful, creative blend of the two, I recommend giving this happy best of both bar a try.

Hops
Hops are the green flowers/seed cones of the hop plant that are used as a flavoring and stabilization agent for beer. They're also used in other beverages and for medicinal purposes.

Adjectives used to describe hops flavor notes include: bitter, spicy, zesty, citrus and pine.

Hops grow vertically up tall trellises. A few months ago, I was delighted to see some crawling up the side of an old airplane hangar now used as a craft brewery (Faction Brewing) in Alameda, CA.

Amano - Cuyagua Village Venezuela Dark Chocolate bar - Oct. 12, 2016

Chocolate of the Day: 

Amano Artisan Chocolate
Cuyagua Village Venezuela Dark Chocolate bar
Good ++
Weight: 1 oz. (28 g.) / 2 oz. (56 g.) in total bar
Calories: 141.4 calories in 1/2 bar
Cost: $9.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Amano Artisan Chocolate (at Chocolate Salon in San Francisco, CA)

Welcome to Day #12 of Chocolate and Venezuelan Theme Week.

Today's Cuyagua Village Venezuela Dark Chocolate bar was from Amano Artisan Chocolate (Orem, UT). This 70 percent dark bar was made with cacao beans grown in the small village of Cuyagua, on the Caribbean coast of Venezuela.

Tasting notes: "Cayugua has beautifully complex flavor notes of spice, melon, and cream."

This bar was at once smooth and complex, with mild spice (almost five spice), green notes, light fruit, very subtle and almost floral notes, and the aforementioned cream. And it evolved over the day after it had been opened to include other flavors.

Amano - Chuao Dark Venezuelan Chocolate bars - Oct. 11, 2016

Chocolate(s) of the Day: 

Amano Chocolate
Chuao Village Venezuela Dark Chocolate bar
Good ++ - Very Good
Weight: .8 oz. (22.4 g.) / 2 oz. (56 g.) in total bar
Calories: 113 calories in 2/5 bar
Cost: $10.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Amano Chocolate

Welcome to Day #11 of Chocolate and Venezuela Theme Week.

We're coming to the end of Venezuela Week. I'll miss this very special origin chocolate; but there are so many other chocolates waiting in in the wings, that I can't complain too much. Adventure awaits.

The last bars from Venezuela, (two today and one tomorrow), were from Amano Artisan Chocolate (Orem, Utah). A few years ago, Amano started moving to new, slightly larger packaging. I happen to have two Amano Chuao bars: one in the older packaging and one in the new packaging.

These two Chuao bars were made from beans that were grown in the same village area in north central Venezuela and sun-dried in front of an historic church—although the two bars bore different Lot numbers.

I tried the two Amano 70 percent Chuao Venezuela Dark Chocolate bars, side by side. Both had a smooth dark chocolate texture, and bright, berry fruit flavor notes; and each bar consisted of 15 segments/squares, each stamped with the words "Amano Artisan Chocolate."

The Chuao Reserve bar in the older packaging (Lot No. 3/4302A) had slightly bolder berry (think blackberry and blueberry) flavors.

The Chuao Reserve bar in the newer packaging (Lot No. 3/5005) had a slightly more subtle, complex tasting arc that encompassed berry + cream + slight floral + very light nut flavor notes.