Rio Arriba 62
by Salgado
Impact
Those burnt forest fire beans in Salgado’s 70% Grand Cru, that even Smokey-the-Bear passed on, are refried here after he rummages thru & finds a pound of sugar in the next tent over. Party’s on; break out those campfire songs.
Appearance 4.5 / 5
| Color: | topsoil |
| Surface: | solid in every aspect incl hefty 100g throwback |
| Temper: | shellac |
| Snap: | ear bullet, pops for 62% w/ occasional silencer on it |
Aroma 7.4 / 10
dumb n‘ closed: cocoa + browned sugar, cinnamon, musted yucca & vegetal stalk -> quiet soursop lurking beneath... opens eventually (8 to 10 hrs later) to rich sturdy chocolate
Mouthfeel 11.8 / 15
| Texture: | powdered granules |
| Melt: | cruiser-weight silk worm: starts slow, picks it up & eventually spins smooth; leaves less an astringent than cauterized feel |
Flavor 36.4 / 50
hops off the bus cocoa-plaintain -> banana -> Oreo™ cream fixation -> brown sugar / molasses -> papaya layers brief-fruited chocolate -> goes dry on cocoa grains (yucca / cassava, barley malt) -> Bosco™ -> faint papaya blossom in the deep throat
Quality 14.7 / 20
Uninspired. Portion of the batch seems very lightly Dutched, a cowl resulting in functional & decent chocolate that compensates for processing flaws, & with enough sugar (~38%), to tweak out highlights missing in its 70% version. Softer conche leaves more ferment intact (detected in the soursop scent; realized in papaya analogues). Taken together, this 62% oddly showcases a greater exposé of ASSS (Arriba Superior Summer Select; doubly so when factoring in the CBS [Cocoa-Butter-Sugar ratio] of ~1:2:2), in a similar pattern to Santander bars that assume fuller spectrum the deeper they go into the sweetener, even into the 50 percentile class. An exception to the rule that optimum bean performance ranges in the low-to-mid 70s save for these or, say, deBondt’s 90% Ecuador.
ING: cocoa mass, sugar, cacáo butter, soya lecithin
ING: cocoa mass, sugar, cacáo butter, soya lecithin