How to taste single-origin chocolate
A fine-flavour cacao bar is not eaten like an industrial one: the profile arrives slowly, and it changes with temperature and with the order you taste in. This guide works for any single-origin chocolate, not only ours.
Before you start
Temperature. Take the bar out half an hour beforehand and let it sit at room temperature, 18 to 20 °C. Cold chocolate releases no aroma.
A clean palate. Room-temperature water, no coffee or mint beforehand. Avoid tasting hungry: it distorts how sweet things seem.
Order. Lowest cacao percentage to highest. Start at 82% and a 68% will taste sugary.
The five steps
1. Sight. A well-tempered bar is glossy and even. White marks do not mean it has spoiled: they are fat or sugar that migrated to the surface after temperature swings.
2. Sound. Snap a piece near your ear. A clean, dry snap means good tempering; a soft bend means it has been through heat.
3. Smell. Rub the piece with your thumb to warm it and smell it. The origin notes appear here, before taste gets involved.
4. Taste. Let it melt on the tongue without chewing, for 20 to 30 seconds. Chew only at the end, to release the retronasal aromas.
5. Finish. Notice how long the flavour lasts after swallowing. Fine-flavour cacao leaves a long finish; bulk cacao fades at once.
What the percentage means
The percentage is how much of the bar comes from the cacao bean, as paste and butter. The rest is almost always sugar. An 82% is not "better" than a 68%: it is less sweet and leaves more room for the character of the tree.
In our 25 g bars the sweetener is panela, unrefined cane sugar, which brings notes of its own. In the 50 g bars it is cane sugar. Neither has added flavourings, so what you taste comes from the cacao and the place it grew.
The same percentage tastes different by origin: Manabí tends towards floral and nutty profiles, Esmeraldas towards a sharper fruity acidity.
Storage
Between 16 and 18 °C, somewhere cool, dry and free of strong smells: cacao absorbs the aromas around it. White chocolate handles heat less well and keeps at 14 to 18 °C.
Avoid the fridge. Humidity condenses when you take it out and ruins the texture and shine. If you have no choice, keep it in an airtight container and let it come back to room temperature before opening.
Our 50 g bars are available; the 25 g bars return with the next harvest, because we follow the trees’ natural seasons.
Leave your email and we will write as soon as the 25 g bars are back. For that only: no newsletters, no spam.