Color:	warm umber, slightly opaque, struck w/ cool red
Surface:	overall clean save for the holes in the corner mold pockets
Temper:	uneven: matte vs. plastic wrapper transfer
Snap:	sheers right off; finely-sanded edge

more Ghana than Mad: stone-grounded cocoa dust -> W African leather rubbed in red palm oil -> light Mad citrus-tang wafts in w/ tobacco smoke -> big rubber

Texture:	medium bodied & smooth enough to melt a backbone
Melt:	metronomic

pops in brownies quickly followed by pure chocolate -> mounting acidity to soft reds (strawberry & raspberry) spread sweetly over breadfruit -> white wash comes on (litchi / langsat) -> ash flecks for contrast settle down into long chocolate corridor framed in those subtle reds -> backs out brownies again, w/ an inverse flip as a lone acid forms the bottom to cocoa’s upper register -> exits black cherry / black forest cake; vanilla after-draw

By now a shopworn pairing of dual origins (Ghana and Madagascar) seen from S-B, C’vic, & others. The key is to blend them seamlessly without one choking on the other.

The right proportions, soldered by butter, create good integration here, replete with plenty of little tricks, twists, & turns (together the two origins doing more than just Ghana holding down the bottom while Madagascar provides levity on top; & Soma’s technique contributes to this, previewed in its Mad 70 having a built-in lower range of its own).

A classic-inverted A-B-A format that keeps taste buds twirling.

ING: cocoa mass, sugar, cacáo butter

Reviewed Autumn 2009