Impact
Appearance 3.5 / 5
| Color: | medium brown |
| Surface: | iced; sugar crystals practically breaking thru |
| Temper: | frustrated |
| Snap: | good punch for 60%; gently granulated edge |
Aroma 7 / 10
initial luft-waft recessed & fakes dimly of Milk Choc until all the straw & hacked grass blow thru... then on to herbaceous caja umbu -> paracress -> tonka bean -> turns wooden into cabreuva mulch -> jackfruit & musty manioc; downtrodden
Mouthfeel 12.7 / 15
| Texture: | simultaneously soft & coarse; good bonbon-level tooth |
| Melt: | greater distance than its 40% sugar count |
Flavor 45.3 / 50
cocoa umami (close to ‘yo moma’ Milk Chocolate) -> salted-nuts Dizzy Gillespie style (the usual suspects [peanuts, brazil of course, & roasted cashew] + the unusual [Mato Grosso groundnut & Paradise nut]) form a confected bar w/ toffee brittle at the base -> ends in candy-land w/ sugar transforming all the straw-hay in the Aromatics into tantalizer strawberry & a beuatifully fleeting gooseberry
Quality 18.6 / 20
After waxing hard about his “Wild-West” rainforest experience, (sleeping on dirt, no running water, bugs, gnats, ants, etc.), including eyewitness to the Int’l Bank theft going down in the Amazon (an unguarded moment of truth in the chocolate chronicles to make Cristian Melo proud); & of the Polish emigré pioneers - the Vronski family – who “liebevoll” (lovingly) grow this cacáo “mit Seele” (with a soul) along with Laercio Rodriguez Monta, then fete him with hospitality & celebrations worthy of a Hollywood premiere in Westwood... Zotter gets down to the business end of this bar.
Roasted at a fanatically precise138ºC (280.4ºF), with a coarse sugar grind of only 26 hours in the - best to hear it in German for its concert symphonic acoustics – “conchiert” (conche machine). Of course, not all conching is the same & what seems short could be just as vigorous as a much longer duration depending on heat, friction, shear, speed, et. al.
Similar to Zotter’s Brazil 70, salt here once more erects a cinderblock barrier to an all-out sugar cane riot (& yet neither get too much in the way of overall Flavor). Other than that, these are 2 completely different chocolates, just as this is quite distinct from another Para-origin bar – S-B’s Tomé-Açu.
The 70, wilder or at least more feral / less refined, to be expected with 10% more cacáo, as well as a richer seed from a whole different terrain within the same country. This fairly one-dimensional, almost monotone save for those savored nut elements. Archetypal really of pre-1989... before the blight & the wipe out of ‘lower Amazon’ cacáo trees when Brazil led the world in cocoa production & the candy giants owned it.
Behind the veil of all that sugar ‘n salt, probably a humble bean. So in the tradition of Claudio Corallo (who also tends, presuming this too to be one, an Amelonado - originally sourced in Brazil coincidentally), Zotter optimizes the intrinsic value, limited though it may be, making the most of what this wrought.
More than just an evocative chocolate of so many memorable bars filling up childhood’s candy jars, but a hard-won kraftwerk.
ING: cocoa mass, raw cane sugar, cacáo butter, salt
Reviewed Autumn 2010
Roasted at a fanatically precise138ºC (280.4ºF), with a coarse sugar grind of only 26 hours in the - best to hear it in German for its concert symphonic acoustics – “conchiert” (conche machine). Of course, not all conching is the same & what seems short could be just as vigorous as a much longer duration depending on heat, friction, shear, speed, et. al.
Similar to Zotter’s Brazil 70, salt here once more erects a cinderblock barrier to an all-out sugar cane riot (& yet neither get too much in the way of overall Flavor). Other than that, these are 2 completely different chocolates, just as this is quite distinct from another Para-origin bar – S-B’s Tomé-Açu.
The 70, wilder or at least more feral / less refined, to be expected with 10% more cacáo, as well as a richer seed from a whole different terrain within the same country. This fairly one-dimensional, almost monotone save for those savored nut elements. Archetypal really of pre-1989... before the blight & the wipe out of ‘lower Amazon’ cacáo trees when Brazil led the world in cocoa production & the candy giants owned it.
Behind the veil of all that sugar ‘n salt, probably a humble bean. So in the tradition of Claudio Corallo (who also tends, presuming this too to be one, an Amelonado - originally sourced in Brazil coincidentally), Zotter optimizes the intrinsic value, limited though it may be, making the most of what this wrought.
More than just an evocative chocolate of so many memorable bars filling up childhood’s candy jars, but a hard-won kraftwerk.
ING: cocoa mass, raw cane sugar, cacáo butter, salt
Reviewed Autumn 2010