Arete Fine Chocolate - Bolivia Beniano 70% Dark Chocolate (bar) - Aug. 28, 2020

Chocolate of the Day 

Arete Fine Chocolate
Bolivia Beniano 70% Dark Chocolate (bar)
Good +++
Weight: 1.15 oz. (32.5 g.) / 2.3 oz. (65 g.) in total bar
Calories: 173 calories (estimate) in 1/2 bar
Cost: $ missing information
Purchased from: Arete Fine Chocolate

Welcome to Day #6 of Chocolate and Bolivia Theme Week.

Today's Bolivia Beniano 70% Dark Chocolate (bar) was made by David Senk and Leslie Senk at Arete Fine Chocolate (formerly located in Milpitas, CA, and now in Spencer, TN). 

Beniano cacao (formerly also referred to as Amazonian Forastero) has been called the Nacional/national cacao of Bolivia, and is often associated with wild cacao with fine flavors. It is a bit more resistant (than delicate heritage varieties) to diseases like "Witches Broom" but still yields complex fine, nuanced flavors, making it desirable for small batch, artisan chocolate makers who can highlight and feature these qualities.

This chocolate had a delicious, well-balanced complexity with chocolate, spice, faint green (green tea, sweet young green peas/shoots, or steamed celery hearts with sweet greens), cereal/malt and dried sweet fruit (plum/prune) notes. All this from just two ingredients.

Ingredients: Cocoa beans (Bolivia Beniano), organic cane sugar.

Nuance Chocolate - Bolivia Alto Beni 2015 70% (bar) - Aug. 27, 2020

Chocolate of the Day

Nuance Chocolate
Bolivia Alto Beni 2015 (harvest) 70% cacao (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: $8.50 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Nuance Chocolate, online order 

Welcome to Day #5 of Chocolate and Bolivia Theme Week.

Today's Single Origin Bolivia Alto Beni 2015 (harvest) 70% (bar) was from Nuance Chocolate (Fort Collins, CO).

Maker's notes read as follows: "A rare criollo/trinitario cacao from the Plurinational State of Bolivia. An extremely creamy mouthfeel, with a complex, but subtle profile. Initial savory layers quickly evolve into fruitier notes, before finishing with hints of dry oak."

My tasting notes: This bar had a bold, complex and shifting, aroma and flavor profile, including bitter and sweet, fermented fruit, cream, faint spice/molasses and fleeting loamy earth and mineral highlights. For those who enjoy an interesting flavor profile, you might appreciate this one.

Working for these Bolivia Alto Beni cacao beans may have required extra skill. Roasting profiles and conching times and overall balance would have been key, especially with this cacao, to maintain the complexity and balance. This was not a flat, dense dark Forastero (cacao variety) boldness where one roast profile might do, but rather a shifting blend of subtle Criollo and Trinitario, that yielded a wide flavor range. And the wider the range, the more interesting opportunities (and decisions) one may have as a chocolate maker. And the more exacting one must be when making the chocolate.

Too much roasting and/or conching and subtle fruit and cream (or any more delicate green or floral notes that would have been present) would be lost. Not enough and a loamy earth and/or latex/rubber note might not be brought into mellowed balance.

The texture and finish were smooth with a mild astringency.

Ingredients:  Cacao, cane sugar, cocoa butter. 

Solstice Chocolate - 70% Palos Blancos Bolivia (bar) - Aug. 26, 2020

Chocolate of the Day

Solstice Chocolate
70% Palos Blancos Bolivia (bar)
Good +++ - Very Good
Weight: 1.15 oz. (32.5 g.) / 2.3 oz. (65 g.) in total bar
Calories: 160 calories in 1/2 bar
Cost: $10.00 (estimate) for 1 bar 
Purchased from: Chocolate Covered, San Francisco, CA

Welcome to Day #4 of Chocolate and Bolivia Theme Week.

Today's 70% Palos Blancos Bolivia (bar) was from Solstice Chocolate (Salt Lake City, UT).

Today's bar had a soft, almost velvety melt and texture, in part due to added to just the right amount of cocoa butter--enough to create a great creamy, nutty texture, but not enough to dull bright, sweet red fruit (dried red cherries with sugar/honey) and true chocolate notes, with a hint of cream and very faint malt.

This is one of the best implementation of Bolivian cacao I've tried yet. The cacao beans used to make this bar were from Palos Blancos, a "wild harvest cacao from the damp, rainy Beniano region (of Bolivia). This climate results in a cacao bean that produces a deep, rich chocolate with subtle notes of nuts, honey and fresh cream."

Ingredients: Organic cacao bean, organic cane sugar, organic cocoa butter.  

Tabal Chocolate - Bolivia 70% Cacao Fairly Traded (bar) - Aug. 25, 2020

Chocolate of the Day

Tabal Chocolate

Bolivia 70% Cacao Fairly Traded (bar)

Good ++

Weight: 1.5 oz. (42.5 g.) / 3 oz. (85 g.) in total bar

Calories: 270 calories in 1/2 bar

Cost: $12.00 for 1 bar

Purchased from: Chocolate Covered, San Francisco, CA

Welcome to Day #3 of Bolivia and Chocolate Theme Week.

Today's Bolivia 70% Cacao Fairly Traded (bar) from Tabal Chocolate (Wauwatosa, WI) had a pleasing bold, smooth chocolatey flavor with sweet, fruit-like brightness, and faint, fleeting nutty flavor at the beginning.

I compared today's 70% cacao Bolivia bar with yesterday's 58% cacao Bolivia sibling, also from Tabal Chocolate. Yesterday, I wondered how much of the bright, fruity flavor from the 58% bar was due to the relatively high sugar content. But, after tasting today's darker version--that had had some of the same bright flavor--it was clear that brightness was from the cacao itself.

Ingredients: Organic cacao, organic cane sugar, organic cocoa butter, organic vanilla bean.

Tabal Chocolate - Bolivia 58% Cacao (bar) - Aug. 24, 2020

Chocolate of the Day

Tabal Chocolate
Bolivia 58% Cacao (bar)

Good +

Weight: 1.5 oz. (42.5 g.) / 3 oz. (85 g.) in total bar

Calories: 390 calories in 1/2 bar

Cost: $12.00 for 1 bar

Purchased from: Chocolate Covered, San Francisco, CA

Welcome to Day #2 of Chocolate and Bolivia Theme Week.

Today's Organic Bolivia 58% Cacao (bar) was made bean to bear with stoneground cacao by Tabal Chocolate  (Wauwatosa, WI).

This chocolate had a sweet, dark chocolate aroma (with very faint bright fruit and spice notes) and a smooth, stoneground* texture. It was hard to tell whether the "brightness" in this thick, sweet (58% cacao) chocolate bar was due to fruit notes or sugar, or both. There was a pleasant, chocolate cake like taste, encouraged by a faint hint of vanilla in addition to a relatively high sugar level.

Ingredients: Organic cacao, organic cane sugar, organic cocoa butter, organic vanilla bean.

*Stoneground cacao often has a rustic, thick, almost grainy texture. But, the stoneground process (using a granite/stone wheel or mortar) may also help to maintain cacao flavors--as the smaller the cacao bean particles become (as they are ground into a smooth paste in chocolate-making), the more particle surfaces are exposed to air and oxidation (and potential flavor loss). Grinding cacao longer may offer smoother texture, but more delicate (e.g. floral) notes may attenuate with longer grinding times. Today's stoneground chocolate was slightly thicker in texture, but still smooth (i.e. not rough or coarse), in part due to added cocoa butter. 

Crow and Moss - Bolivian Rose Salt 67% (bar) - Aug. 23, 2020

Chocolate of the Day

Crow and Moss
Bolivian Rose Salt 67% (bar)

Good ++

Weight: 1.235 oz. (35 g.) / 2.47 oz. (70 g.) in total bar

Calories: 185 calories (estimate) in 1/2 bar

Cost: $8.75 for 1 bar

Purchased from: Chocosphere.com, online order

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

Today's Bolivian Rose Salt Chocolate 67% bar was from Crow and Moss Chocolate (Petoskey, MI). The firm specializes in hand-crafted bean-to-bar chocolate bars. 

This bar was made from Colombian Aruaca cacao beans and Bolivian Rose Salt from the Andes, and the chocolate had an aroma with dried fruit (nectarines, peaches) and pleasant sweet notes.

Last week's Ghana and Ivory Coast bars were full of bold, deep dark Forastero and Forastino cacao flavors. Today marked a change to lighter and brighter chocolates. 

This bar had a flavor with mild stone fruit; fleeting cream/faint fermented milk notes; a light array of savory salt sparkles (with a fleeting pepper note as well); and a relatively subtle finish. The sweetness was nicely balanced with the salt.

Ingredients: Cacao blend, Bolivian rose salt, organic cane sugar.

Domori - Chacao Organic Milk Chocolate 42% Cacao (bar) - Aug. 22, 2020

Chocolate of the Day

Domori 
(Chacao line)
Cioccolato Al Latte Bio 
Organic Milk Chocolate (bar)
Good ++ - Good +++
Weight: .88 oz. (25 g.) / 1.76 oz. (50 g.) in total bar
Calories: 295.5 calories in 1 bar; 147.75 cals. in 1/2 bar
Cost: $6.50 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Chocosphere.com, online order

Welcome to Day #10 of Ghana and Ivory Coast Theme Week.

Today's Cioccolato Al Latte Bio (Organic Milk Chocolate) Ivory Coast bar was from Domori (None, Torino, Italy). 

This bean-to-bar, organic dark milk 42% bar was made from "Forastino" cacao, a complex and interesting variation on popular Forastero cacao beans, grown in Cote de Ivoire (Ivory Coast).

The dark milk chocolate had an aroma with slight green, followed by nut, caramel and warm spice and floral honey notes.

This bar's complex dark milk chocolate flavor included caramel and nut notes, and a lingering sweet finish. The sweetness was balanced by a muffled undercurrent of dark chocolate bitterness.

Ingredients: organic cane sugar, organic cocoa butter, organic milk powder, organic cocoa mass, emulsifier (soy lecithin).