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CARIBBEAN SUITE:
Cuba
Costa Rica
Santo Domingo

by Szántó Tibor
Info Details
Country Hungary   
Type Semi-Dark   (70%)
Strain Hybrid   
Source Cuba   (+ Costa Rica; Dominican Republic)
Flavor Naked   (in attitude)
Style retro-American      
lo
med
hi
CQ
Sweetness
Acidity
Bitterness
Roast
Intensity
Complexity
Structure
Length
Impact
Someone on the street, trying to have a natural conversation with a person, soon understood that that is now, with "social media", not humanly possible.

Speaking of which, this bar, quite au natural due to a retro-American hypo-impact processing on the edge of "raw", synonymous with 'adventure' (or just another word for poor planning). Ya know, desire without direction, disjointed; dysfunctional; broken.

Not death by chocolate but suicide with chocolate, hanging on Flavors of rope, sisal, twine. So appropriate because in chocolate-centric Mayan culture, the noose was the only method deemed acceptable & guaranteed anyone who took their own life this way a place in the afterworld. They even had a goddess of the gallows named Ixtab (“Rope Woman”).

Worse, some such bars taste of sheet rock forming a perfect feed for termites or the stuff of Olmecs (considered Theobroma cacao’s 1st cultivators hundred of years before the common era) ready to do battle that comes with a stub for combat pay should you survive.

Incredibly, Szántó Tibor solves the riddle in this technique of the old school tradition & brings palatable flavor in a series of self-soothing profiles.
Appearance   3.7 / 5
Color: cooler shades of brown
Surface: Mayan glyph mold
Temper: lackluster
Snap: oh, yeah
Aroma   7.3 / 10
Cuba
Big Tobacco in an Earthen upheaval

Costa Rica
stoned: grinding stones, pavement stones, cocoa stones

Santo Domingo
twigs, vines, roots, brambles
Mouthfeel   11.9 / 15
Texture: straddles the divide between powder on impact to...
Melt: .... butter fat on the backside
Flavor   44.6 / 50
Cuba
fig-topia, luscious green cocoa close on its heels -> slow-rising smoldering tobac -> evanescent grape plunges into an oak cask -> dried fruit ending

Costa Rica
chocolate bang right off the bat, deteriorates quickly into greens & things (quasi-raw cocoa) cut by those stone facets of the Aromatics -> dry honey -> bitter roots pull up the rear -> stringent peach blossom -> mineral sands

Santo Domingo
great opening stack (fruit / chocolate / earthen elements)… transmigrates into a beautiful distilled liqueur topped by herbs for a semi-bittersweet medicinal tonic, call it a Chocolate Drambuie
Quality   17.7 / 20
Cuba
Baracoa, Cuba

Solid Cubano -- nothing too glam or sexed, as expected for this island cacáo, despite garnering a "Great Taste Award" which speaks to a) the paucity of entries &/or b) the pupils on the sensory panel

Costa Rica
CS; TSH; EET; R Clonal Series; + / Alajuela; Bijagua de Upala; Finca La Amistad

A pretty stone-cold bar. Nothing like the uber-refinements of Felchlin's Amistad. Appreciated most by the super-dry albino-winos.

Santo Domingo
San Cristobal Heima; The Dominican Republic

Exceptional for the style (hyper-low impact processing) or for any house style for that matter. And no surprise that it hails from The D.R. whose seemingly fortified cacáo stocks match well with Szántó Tibor's approach where, say, Nicaragua's less endowed cacáos stand problematic.

INGREDIENTS: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter

Reviewed October 13, 2015

  

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