Ocumare 70%
by Lillie Belle
Impact
Chocumare: a 'chocolate nightmare' that's scary good -- spooktacular in fact -- to send gobble-ins from Lillie Belle's cocoa-lab in Tasteport, Oregon all the way to Gusto'pia
Appearance 4.7 / 5
| Color: | blushing brown |
| Surface: | neo-tropic / art-deco mold (think Jackie Gleason, Miami, 1960s) |
| Temper: | polished vinyl |
| Snap: | a Lillie Belle strong suit -- just punctures & reverberates the airwaves |
Aroma 8.2 / 10
that unmistakable chocolate-almond from Ocumare Valley until... Lillie Belle turns on the gas oven & toasts those nuts to charcoal briquets (or, more generously, "tobacco smoke") but with a fruited sweet-spot
Mouthfeel 12.5 / 15
| Texture: | powdered silk |
| Melt: | prolonged |
Flavor 47.6 / 50
pure chocolate around fleeting red fruit -> juices strawberry -> back to choc from the middle out to the end -> almondine finish; aftermath adds black cherry-chocolate, minor charcoal & slight astringency
Quality 17.1 / 20
No ordinary piece in an otherwise middling line. Harkens to Coppeneur's early Ocumare that signaled its ascendency but this shows kinder / less manipulated.
Exemplifies home-ground chocolate: simple & very honest. Baked oven roast + baby grind to powder-fine Texture. And these kernels profit from both.
Re-validates Ocumare's status no matter what the circumstance... current socio-politico-economic problems notwithstanding in Venezuela that make cacáo cultivation & export challenging.
ING: cocoa mass, sugar
Reviewed October 31, 2011
Exemplifies home-ground chocolate: simple & very honest. Baked oven roast + baby grind to powder-fine Texture. And these kernels profit from both.
Re-validates Ocumare's status no matter what the circumstance... current socio-politico-economic problems notwithstanding in Venezuela that make cacáo cultivation & export challenging.
ING: cocoa mass, sugar
Reviewed October 31, 2011