Color:	mid mink struck in orange
Surface:	scuffed & bruised
Temper:	semi-flat
Snap:	pure w/ extremely level, non-porous edge

simple & straight dried cocoa powder, about as unadorned & unassuming as it gets until slipping on an over-ripe red banana peel... then all hell breaks loose -> smoke, husks, walnuts, tar & nicotine enveloped by late developing mangorange in keeping with its Color; hickory-smoked gouda in the rubdown

Texture:	glob ...
Melt:	... clod

instantly lit: smoke -> charred bones in the abbatoir -> ash settles into silver cocoa -> fermented mango acids mix w/ ash for bitter tang ->burnt gouda & vinyl melts into grim chocolate fondue soot -> smolders away green walnut brownie

88% can be a punishing percentage but Esmeraldas is among the most benign varietals on the planet (witness Caoni’s 77%). A prejudicial roast just embattles the origin in a death rattle. Salgado seemingly scorches everything; long & strong just to make sure of it. What – close to 400 degrees for well over an hour? Free of all finesse & consideration; that’s how completely this burns the rainforest down. Destroyed.

Very little else really matters or needs discussing except some of the grace that’s Esmeraldas can still be glimpsed thru the crematorium... in spite of the violent treatment.

ING: cocoa mass, sugar, cacáo butter, soya lecithin; CBS (Cocoa-Butter-Sugar ratio) ~4:4:1

Reviewed Spring 2010