Chamisa Chocolate - a date with chocolate 71% Honduras bar - Sept. 5, 2019

Chocolate of the Day: 

Chamisa Chocolate
a date with chocolate 71% Honduras bar
Good +++
Weight: 1 oz. (30 g.) / 2 oz. (60 g.) (per label) for total bar
Calories: 150 calories (estimate) in 1/2 bar
Cost: $10.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Chamisa Chocolate, online order

Welcome to Day #6 of Chamisa Chocolate Theme Week.

Today's "a date with chocolate" 71% Honduras bar was crafted by Chamisa Chocolate (Santa Fe, NM).

This bar was thick and creamy and had light earth (mushroom), cacao and nutty flavor notes.

The incorporation of the dates (as the sole sweetener) was perfect. The dates offered sweetness without being overly sweet (which is often the result when dates are added to a chocolate items).

Chamisa Chocolate - tree of gold (mulberries) 71% Honduras bar - Sept. 4, 2019

Chocolate of the Day: 

Chamisa Chocolate
tree of gold (mulberries) 71% Honduras bar
Good +++ - Very Good
Weight: 1 oz. (30 g.) / 2 oz. (60 g.) (per label) for total bar
Calories: 150 calories (estimate) in 1/2 bar
Cost: $10.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Chamisa Chocolate, online order

Welcome to Day #5 of Chamisa Chocolate Theme Week.

Today's tree of gold (mulberries) 71% Honduras bar was crafted by Chamisa Chocolate (Santa Fe, NM).

This bar had a chocolate, light fruit and sweet vegetable (tomato) aroma notes. The melt and mouthfeel was thick and creamy, with a fleeting very soft (not unpleasant) graininess (from dried fruit/berries is my guess).

The chocolate had smooth, dried, dark berry flavor notes mellowed by the dark smooth, almost nutty Honduras cacao. The absence of sugar in this lovely, 3-ingredient, mulberry*-sweetened bar was palpable, and delightful.

I would enjoy eating this unique (mulberry-sweetened + no added sugar) bar any day of the week.

Ingredients: "Organic cacao beans, organic dehydrated mulberries, organic cacao butter"

*Mulberries are wonderful. They're occasionally available at a local farmers market here in the Bay Area. And they sell out very quickly. Red mulberries are native to the Eastern U.S. And black and white mulberry trees came from Asia (China) to the U.S. as early as the 1600s. The latter were imported in part for sericulture or silk production. (Silk worms are fed almost exclusively white mulberry leaves.)

Note: The illustration used on the packaging was from a painting, The Mulberry Tree, by Vincent Van Gogh

Chamisa Chocolate - oat milk chai spice 61% bar - Sept. 3, 2019

Chocolate of the Day: 

Chamisa Chocolate
oat milk chai spice 61% cacao bar
Good +++ - Very Good
Weight: 1 oz. (30 g.) / 2 oz. (60 g.) (per label) for total bar
Calories: 152 calories (estimate) in 1/2 bar
Cost: $10.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Chamisa Chocolate, online order

Welcome to Day #4 of Chamisa Chocolate Theme Week.

Today's oat milk chai spice 61% cacao bar from Chamisa Chocolate (Santa Fe, NM) was made with cacao grown in Tumaco, Colombia.

I enjoyed the flavors in this bar very much. Fond childhood memories about making ginger molasses cookies with my mother and sipping chai tea surely created a positive bias when tasting today's chocolate with warming chai spices.

However, I was also intrigued with the maker's comments (see her note below) about the sweetness of this (and another) bar featured this week due to dairy milk alternatives that were included.* (Maker, Amanda Hatherly, shares our taste preference for less sugar sweetness in dark chocolate.)

Amanda wrote: "...even though the 61% (bars) seem a lot sweeter, they...have the same sugar content as the darker 71% bars...as that extra 10% is the coconut or oat "milk." They taste a lot sweeter...because of that."

*Yes, there was sugar in today's bar, but it was further down the list than one might expect. Ingredients: "Organic: cacao beans, GF oats, tiger nuts, cacao butter, sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, black pepper, Himalayan pink salt."

Chamisa Chocolate - Bochasweet 71% bar - Sept. 2, 2019

Chocolate of the Day: 

Chamisa Chocolate
Bochasweet 71% bar
Good ++ - Good +++
Weight: 1.5 oz. (42.4 g.) (estimate) in total bar
Calories: N/A - no information
Cost: $N/A - sample bar (from Chamisa)
Sent from: Chamisa Chocolate, part of an online order

Welcome to Day #3 of Chamisa Chocolate Theme Week.

Today's Bochasweet 71% bar from Chamisa Chocolate (Santa Fe, NM). Founder, Amanda Hatherly, has never been a fan of sweet dark chocolate. She has explored various sugar alternatives, including dates, freeze-dried fruit, and Bochasweet.*

Thank you to Amanda at Chamisa Chocolate for sharing this special bar.

The chocolate was dark and creamy and not too sweet, and had a certain refreshing coolness about it. Like sitting in a cool forest. (Sugar tends to feel "hotter" on the palette.) Dried blueberries added concentrated, natural, moist, berry sweetness. And a sprinkling of chopped almonds added a soft accent crunch.

The bar's natural cocoa finish also had a lingering low level of sweetness I found hard to pinpoint (and likely from the Bochasweet). This sweetness was not unpleasant, unnatural, bitter or "off" in any way. Just a very mild sweet presence. There was a distinct calm feeling with this bar. No sugar rush.

*Bochasweet is a "zero calorie, zero glycemic" sugar substitute made of kabocha extract, that is available from Bochasweet LLC (Las Vegas, NV). Kabocha is a green, pumpkin-like winter squash from Japan.

Chamisa Chocolate - raspberry bear 71% Honduras bar - Sept. 1, 2019

Chocolate of the Day: 

Chamisa Chocolate
raspberry bear 71% Honduras bar
Good ++ - Good +++
Weight: 1 oz. (30 g.) (per label) / 2 oz. (60 g.) in total bar
Calories: 150 calories (estimate) in 1/2 bar
Cost: $10.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Chamisa Chocolate, Santa Fe, CA

Welcome to Day #1 of Chamisa Chocolate Theme Week.

Today's raspberry bear 71% Honduras bar was from Chamisa Chocolate (Santa Fe, NM).

This thick, relatively creamy, organic* and vegan dark chocolate bar had red raspberry bits on the back.

The chocolate had pleasing, mini-bursts of natural tart raspberry flavor that complemented the rich, almost nutty, chocolate. And, once again, this bar, was not too sweet (thank you Amanda!).

*Ingredients: Organic cacao beans, organic sugar, organic cacao butter, organic raspberry

Chamisa Chocolate - little fox: pistachio and cherry 71% (bar) - Aug. 31, 2019

Chocolate of the Day:

Chamisa Chocolate
little fox: pistachio and cherry 71% (bar)
Good ++
Weight: 1 oz. (28.3 g.) / 2 oz. (60 g.) total bar
Calories: 150 calories (estimate) in 1/2 bar
Cost: $10.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Chamisa Chocolate, Santa Fe, NM

Welcome to Day #1 of Chamisa Chocolate Theme Week.

It's with much gratitude that I've been able to feature 4,600+ different chocolates over more than 12 years. Chocolate Banquet would not have been possible without 100+ chocolate makers and many 100s more small and large chocolatiers.

I have special respect for bean-to-bar, craft chocolate makers. Women chocolate makers make up a growing percent in this rather technical, dynamic field. And they tend to be fascinating multi-faceted (both halves of the brain) people.

As local San Francisco Bay Area chocolate maker, Nancy Nadel* once told me, "you have to be comfortable fixing broken machines along with making and selling the chocolate, and everything else that is part of running a small business."

Amanda Hatherly, Chamisa Chocolate

So, it is with much delight that I am dedicating this week to featuring a selection of bars from Amanda Hatherly, chief chocolate maker at Chamisa Chocolate (Santa Fe, New Mexico). Amanda** is very involved with energy and sustainability. And, as it turns out, she also makes great chocolate.

After a recent visit to New Mexico, Amanda's food of the gods bar made with 81% Honduras cacao (featured recently)—found at a local New Mexico shop (Cashmere + Chocolate)—got my attention.

Today's organic and vegan Chamisa Chocolate "little fox: pistachio and cherry" 71% (bar) was made with Oko Caribe (Dominican Republic) cacao. The (compostable) wrapper was adorned with a beautiful watercolor painting of a fox.

This dark bar had well balanced flavors, was not too sweet (thank you!), and an attractive smattering of light green pistachio nut and ruby colored cherry bits occupied the back of the bar. The dark chocolate was uniform and densely dark, and relatively low in fruit/acidic flavors, which gave the cherry a chance to sparkle.

*Nancy Nadel, owner and founder of The Oakland Chocolate Company (Oakland, CA), is trained as an engineer and an artist, and she has used cacao grown in St. Mary's Parish in Jamaica to make an impressive array of confections, bars and spreads for many years. (She also previously served on the Oakland City Council.)

**Amanda is the Director of a regional energy efficiency training center for the Department of Energy, and is also involved in water efficiency training. Her commitment to sustainability carries over into her chocolate making as well. (She uses organic cacao, compostable packaging, and Chamisa Chocolate is located in a solar-powered facility. Her bars are also vegan.)

Libeert Belgian Chocolate Creators - Ecuador 71% Dark Origin Chocolate (bar) - Aug. 30, 2019

Chocolate of the Day: 

Libeert s.a. - Belgian Chocolate Creators
Ecuador 71% Dark Origin Chocolate (bar)
Good +
Weight: 1.35 oz. (40 g.) / 2.7 oz. (80 g.) in total bar
Calories: 255 calories in 1/2 bar
Cost: $1.99 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Grocery Outlet Bargain Market, Palo Alto, CA

Welcome to Day #9 of Chocolate and Ecuador Theme Week.

Today's Ecuador 71% Dark Origin Chocolate (bar) was from Libeert s.a. - Belgian Chocolate Creators (Comines, Belgium).

Belgian chocolates have been made from cacao blends (no origin listed), and/or been made with West African cacao (where most of the world's supply is currently grown).

However, a larger number of Belgian chocolate bars are now available made with cacao from other/single origins, including Central and South America.

This thin bar had a slightly buttery melt, and cocoa/true chocolate, light floral, fruit, earth and nut notes. A balanced, subtle bouquet of flavors.

The maker's description read: "Roasted cocoa with...hints of humus and flowers."