Impact
The gift of Domori: bottling the chocolate genie in a bar. After unwrapping this, even howler monkeys in the rainforest get typeractive & txt msg ‘Merry Xmas’.
Appearance 2.2 / 5
| Color: | pewter brown w/ black veins |
| Surface: | sloven; more crenulations & reticulations than a Jackson Pollack or Marla Olmstead’s daddy’s canvas |
| Temper: | lackluster |
| Snap: | sharp bite; pinholes on the break |
Aroma 9.7 / 10
phenomenally quadraphrenic - high/low left/right contrast: cacáo & coffee split on the bottom, blackberry & candied jasmine in the upper register; thick, concentrated & classic Nacional
Mouthfeel 14.6 / 15
| Texture: | swells w/ pride & body |
| Melt: | like its overall personality, patient, fluid, & then some... melts in the mind |
Flavor 47.8 / 50
coldcocks a chocolate bang right off -> quickly earthens out on boldly roasted coffee -> fruit to the fore w/out losing cocoa/coffee groundswell: cassis & logan berries -> banana, spiced w/ vanilla & cinnamon -> goes into heat over all sorts of radial flowers (hibiscus [modulated from loganberry], yellow orchid, jasmine, & damask) -> veers back to earth, 2nd time around more feral: a black cake of rosewood (backcross of damask), moist soil, mushroom truffle, hazelnut & molasses -> vaporizes black tar heroin poppy
Quality 2 / 20
Such natural ease, how the chocolate comes to itself, stays within itself, while enveloping the senses. So relaxed, it misses the peaks & tweaks of Felchlin’s & Slitti’s (erratic) versions of this origin (though it does have shades of República del Cacao’s El Oro banana). In undermining those manipulative strategies with a relatively ‘hands-off’ approach (despite being a darker Domori, for sure, in the roast – a prerequisite for Nacional), its almost-alien beauty exerts mesmerizing appeal, as if it spell-binds by knowing its very own color, form, flavor, & dynamic... to seem self-conscious.