Today, we’re tasting bars of bean to bar chocolate from all around Central America and how they differ in flavours.
Belize – typical notes of mixed fruit, berries and tropical.
Dick Taylor, originally carpenters and boat makers (as a nod to their past professions on the packaging) based on California sourcing fair-trade organic cacao beans to make wonderful bars of chocolate. Once you’ve gotten through the beautiful packaging you are greeted by a stunning moulded bar of chocolate. Intricate and delicate, a sign of a perfectly crafted chocolate due to the fine moulding of the chocolate. A rare gem and shows the craftsmanship that has gone into this bar. On the other side of the bar, snowed with toasted desiccated coconut to pair its tropical nutty notes with the delicate smooth chocolate with a hint of sweetness from the maple syrup. A joy to eat and I challenge anyone to not enjoy this bar of loveliness.
Guatemala – typical notes of berries and fruity acidity.
Dormouse Guatemala 72% based in Manchester, UK and have produced some of my favourite bars I’ve ever tasted. This bar has a deep richness, with a dominant flavour of vine fruit. Like all Dormouse Bars, incredibly moorish and smooth. This bar would be perfect with a dessert sherry to pair beautifully the Christmas pudding and mince pie flavours going on.
Dormouse Guatemala 51.5%. This bar is a winner of the Gold Award of the Academy of Chocolate. What makes an award-winning bar is when the bar doesn’t have a mono flavour but develops as the bar melts to reveal a more complex flavour that continues. This bar starts with a slight blackcurrant fruitiness that develops into a gentle treacly caramelised flavour. An absolute star.
Honduras – typical notes are buttery, nutty with a hint of fruit.
Land Chocolate 65% Dark Malt Honduras. Funnily when getting bars to send to Patricia to California in a Choc-swap, I included Land in her selection and got the same bar for myself too. This is an interesting bar as contains malted barley as part of the ingredients. This gives the bar a savoury nutty note, which reminded me of a chocolate stout with coffee as well to add to the intense flavours. Also another maker moulding beautifully clean bars too.
Nicaragua – typical notes of honey, caramel and nuts.
Friss Holm Chuno 70% Triple Turned from Nicaragua, Rugoso 70% Bad Fermentation and Standard Fermentation. Why have one bar of chocolate when you can have three? Firstly, the Chuno 70% Triple Turned from Nicaragua, Silver Award for the 2017 Chocolate awards, turned during fermenting to give a different flavour to those beans turned once or twice. This bar is super smooth a citrus bite, not zingy but refreshing with the creaminess. Sad I only got it in a 25g bar! Second and Thirdly at the same beans Rugoso 70% from Nicaragua but one bar with ‘bad fermentation’ which isn’t bad at all but a shorter process than standard fermentation as most people think the longer the fermentation that better. The spicy citrus flavour is slightly short-lived and ends cleanly. The other bar slowly develops the same flavour profile but lingers around more on the palate. Beautiful beautifully smooth. Nice to see how the process and steps involved that can affect the end bars.
Have you tried any bars from Central America?
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