Color:	Cuzco 80: saddle brown Piura Select: burnt-orange blush Piura + Nibs: muddy brown Piura Milk: silver ferric oxide Lakuna: gorgeous Rosie Brown
Surface:	early onset bloom
Temper:	distorted
Snap:	on-cue

Cuzco 80
80% cacáo-content
pungent & vibrant; equestrian & canine
horsetail + dog sweat
bales of hay
laurel canyon
settles, thanks to that straw bed, into a golden molasses that spirals around a fruit-loop
sums up 'trippy'

Piura Select
70% cacáo-content
malted ferment tangs up a, what else?, pitanga fruit plume

Piura + Nibs
70% cacáo-content
pops out Raisinettes^®
plops down vinegar on bluestone
settles into sweet tamarind 'n cream

Piura Milk
deep sweet toffee-cream -> cheese funk blown off not by crème fraiche or crème anglaise but cream peru agria

Lakuna
70% cacáo-content
wafts out very dry, arid as a cinder block -> quickly turns "wet" on sour bar-b-q sauce, then aerates, miraculously, on melon!!! to bloom forth a chocolate garland of fruits 'n flowers

Texture:	thick (add 'gravel' to the Piura Nibs bar)
Melt:	slow

Cuzco 80
aborted caramel -> citric acid tongue tease glides over that amber molasses hung from the Aroma -> yields to dry arid woodscapes only to return to hover & hang about as cuffed passionfruit -> caramel reborn into caramelized citrus -> ferment box

Piura Select
direct transfer of aromatics... lots of wooded lots... until a sticky stringent pine grip at the back (both pineapple + pine needle) -> Tootsie Roll out

Piura + Nibs
milky dark entrance... enjoined by mulling spices -> BIG raisins -> Cap'n Crunch^® thanks to nibs -> sweet pineapple -> cream ending

Piura Milk
WYSIWYT (what-you-sniff is what-you-taste) in a turgid / plodding Texture... constant steady state of virtually no progression highlighted by black fruit gradually emerges at the very back held aloft by the cream quotient as a burnt raisin that comes fore in the guise of a super sweet blackstrap mission fig -> port -> more black -- black mushroom cloud of a Milk Dud^® covers all at the slow finish -> slight quinine after taste

Lakuna
streaming tannic fruits, including cacáo of course -> fudge -> snagged in a bramble along chicory root before releasing not-too-bitter almond at the back -> banana-plum (sensational) -> blackberry (not bad either!)

Cacaosuyo prides itself on a self-described Incan heritage (Tawantinsuyu). Sure enough this leaves the cacáo seeds largely free from over-processing. As in before the stove & the oven appeared, & getting too close to any campfires risk burning the beans. Not a "hands off" approach; but a generalized light hand taken to them.

Cuzco 80
Potent as expected for an 80%-class chocolate, & piercing on account of the acidity. Surprisingly, however, semi-sweet. Brazen for sure; even barbed; therefore far from everyone's mass-appeal taste.
If Bonnat's renders this regional cacáo a Naked FlavorProfile & Shattell delivers it as Spices 'n Herbs, this then pure Twang juice.
All factors considered, it underscores quality control from selection to processing & sums up a wild mien yet well-mannered.

Piura Select
Awww, so precious wafer-thin 25-gram bar mold -- the counterpoint to a wood paddle of a flavor profile. Plus those acids -- a growing signature of Cacaosuyo. Among the most abrasive Piuras to hit the market. Ripe for jaded palates scraping to unearth their tongues.

Piura + Nibs
Other than just a last lick or two of the Piura Select (above) with which it shares a regional appellation, this bar diverges widely from that bar. The difference largely on account of the white-seed cacáo herein which creates a milder contour overall with those softer lactic acid compounds for milk-like FXs & generally sweeter definition to the fruit associations. For example, that raisin so pronounced to be amplified to the point of an additive!!! All the more stunning considering the Nibs tossed in which usually weigh on & pull down the profile. Almost the opposite occurs.
Cacaosuyo really scored / scores with this one.

Piura Milk
Once it hits stride, just no letting up.
Among the densest Milks since... well, Holy Cacáo.
Further sublimates the white-seeded Piura with the lactose mother of 'em all -- dairy milk itself.

Lakuna
Big, buxom, bold without bulldozing the senses. Enticing & inviting instead. Such charisma minus any ostentation.
Cacaosuyo turns up the fire pit a bit on this one. Just by a notch or two to warm the flavors for shades of Beníano in its purple fruit countenance. A full-spectrum FlavPro; + Texture to match that starts thick only to melt fluid.
A bar that checks all the boxes. And merits a review of its own. As a matter of fact, the C-spot™ devoted an entire one to it singly back in the pre-"New Abnormal" times in the ancient year of 2014. Updated here & now & ever better.
Could stand maybe 2% more cocoa content to temper the exuberance by a hair & equilibrate a breath more heft across the board but that's quibbling over near-perfection.
Superb.

Reviewed December 1, 2021