Impact
UPDATED / UPGRADED REDUX REVIEW: The following features Soma's 2 Camino Verde bars -- the 80% cacáo-content released in 2014 & the 70% in 2016. Overall rating (upper right) reflects a composite average of both. The metrics of CQ thru to the Length (also upper right) apply only to the 80%.
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The 80%: No 'camino verde' pero 'camino marrón' (the brown way). The BIg Brown way.
The 70%: a beanball.
The 70%: a beanball.
Appearance 3.6 / 5
| Color: | dark woods-ear mushroom brown |
| Surface: | serviceable with alveoli in the corner pockets |
| Temper: | the newer energy-efficient low-watt bulb |
| Snap: | tighter than Canadian heavyweight George Chuvalo's chin after being clocked 1-2-3 in reverse order by Foreman, Frazier, & Ali |
Aroma 8 / 10
80%
Soma's bakery absorbs into the cocoa butter
bread baking in the oven studded with tropical fruits (pineapple to mango)
comes out a wooded-spiced chicle garnished with some Springtime as this sprouts a young green shoot
70%
dry.... super-dry as parched landscape until a small melonic watering-hole springs forth for some meadow greens gleaned in the 80% (above)
Soma's bakery absorbs into the cocoa butter
bread baking in the oven studded with tropical fruits (pineapple to mango)
comes out a wooded-spiced chicle garnished with some Springtime as this sprouts a young green shoot
70%
dry.... super-dry as parched landscape until a small melonic watering-hole springs forth for some meadow greens gleaned in the 80% (above)
Mouthfeel 13.2 / 15
| Texture: | heavy middleweight |
| Melt: | ever-last |
Flavor 44.2 / 50
80%
walnut brownie -> tannic cocoa -> a chocolate 2x4 -> char on the remote fringes -> lone bitter -> chicory -> winds up banana-cream that flirts with the sweet nutty taste of Saskatoon berry
70%
Camino's now trademark herbal-yeast feast... feeding on itself -> nuts up some blanched almonds & cashews -> underside of lite spice (ginger-nutmeg) -> plantain -> dried palm -> slate substrate -> bush roots & beans in the aft-FXs
walnut brownie -> tannic cocoa -> a chocolate 2x4 -> char on the remote fringes -> lone bitter -> chicory -> winds up banana-cream that flirts with the sweet nutty taste of Saskatoon berry
70%
Camino's now trademark herbal-yeast feast... feeding on itself -> nuts up some blanched almonds & cashews -> underside of lite spice (ginger-nutmeg) -> plantain -> dried palm -> slate substrate -> bush roots & beans in the aft-FXs
Quality 16.7 / 20
80%
Batch Cva
Camino Verde can generally be a static chocolate within each of its veritable fermentation pre-sets (Herbal; Earthen; Fruit, et.al.).
All the advanced micro-biota points to multiple options for Camino's buyer-barsmiths so that each can walk away with a quasi-customized overlay while the common underlying characteristic for all these Camino Verdes rushing into the premium market space -- Dick Taylor, Fruition, Ritual, Rogue, Woodblock -- serves as a kind of root stock that holds a certain stable platform on which to integrate those overlays rather seamlessly.
Each to date have recorded good marks… attesting to both the skills of these various barsmiths as well as planter Vincent Norero's near damage-resistent cocoa.
This one proves likewise & reveals Camino's more Naked side, practically nothing but basal cocoa flavor. Much of that attributable to Soma's own handiwork which cooks off the nuances. It blasts up the furnace & should probably reduce the heat 5% - 10% to eliminate the burnt edge which would still leave the sustain unaffected.
As is, a bar that stays put & goes nowhere; hence the length deceives in that it really has none, other the melt itself. Thus, extremely poised, doubly so for 80%, with or without the added butter cut.
70%
Batch Cva603030
10% down-shift in cacáo-content produce little in the way of catalytic conversions. In fact, this bar reduces them compared to the 80% which may be more a measure of the vintage, the seed stock, & the fermentation pre-sets at Camino Verde than any sugar variable.
Still, hyper-controlled drive / dive into lingering legume folds when all the mass clears the throat.
INGREDIENTS: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter
80% Reviewed May 16, 2014
70% Reviewed August 23, 2016
Batch Cva
Camino Verde can generally be a static chocolate within each of its veritable fermentation pre-sets (Herbal; Earthen; Fruit, et.al.).
All the advanced micro-biota points to multiple options for Camino's buyer-barsmiths so that each can walk away with a quasi-customized overlay while the common underlying characteristic for all these Camino Verdes rushing into the premium market space -- Dick Taylor, Fruition, Ritual, Rogue, Woodblock -- serves as a kind of root stock that holds a certain stable platform on which to integrate those overlays rather seamlessly.
Each to date have recorded good marks… attesting to both the skills of these various barsmiths as well as planter Vincent Norero's near damage-resistent cocoa.
This one proves likewise & reveals Camino's more Naked side, practically nothing but basal cocoa flavor. Much of that attributable to Soma's own handiwork which cooks off the nuances. It blasts up the furnace & should probably reduce the heat 5% - 10% to eliminate the burnt edge which would still leave the sustain unaffected.
As is, a bar that stays put & goes nowhere; hence the length deceives in that it really has none, other the melt itself. Thus, extremely poised, doubly so for 80%, with or without the added butter cut.
70%
Batch Cva603030
10% down-shift in cacáo-content produce little in the way of catalytic conversions. In fact, this bar reduces them compared to the 80% which may be more a measure of the vintage, the seed stock, & the fermentation pre-sets at Camino Verde than any sugar variable.
Still, hyper-controlled drive / dive into lingering legume folds when all the mass clears the throat.
INGREDIENTS: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter
80% Reviewed May 16, 2014
70% Reviewed August 23, 2016