Impact
Classical poise / Blues intensity that adheres to Netwon’s 1st law: a body in motion stays in motion. Chuao is primordially a masculine variety. Here Marcolini unwraps its inner-female yoni into a drooling inside-out centerfold, with a different tact & stroke on the origin – the ultimate posh spice. Unlike the human waif of similar moniker, this struts its own built-in athleticism. Every bit as good as that other Chuao... just kinder, softer, gentler. Basically the difference between a street model Ferrari GTS Gran Turismo versus the racing SF Scuderia type. Which hardly matters since this is a ‘success-disaster’ – Chuao being so rare, with limited distribution channel, it’s often gone before it arrives.
Appearance 5 / 5
| Color: | Chuao red – deep chestnut |
| Surface: | glassine |
| Temper: | gleaming mirror, mirror on the wall |
| Snap: | oracular - uniquely low & powerful; sheared edge |
Aroma 8.3 / 10
unlike any other Chuao... shivering deep yet light... exhaling whispers of organic chocolate encased between small nutwoods & wild blueberries, all gently backlit under Marcolini’s kindest roast to date; plum ferment on the rubdown
Mouthfeel 13.1 / 15
| Texture: | soft & fleshy |
| Melt: | turbo |
Flavor 47.9 / 50
wild blueberry hill slopes to yuletide spices -> buckets of chocolate -> flour ‘n honey for chocolate cake -> cream, lots of cream -> macadamia snowflakes & white fruit (cherimoya), a palimsest over the tracks underneath -> blown off by more spice incline, this round w/ added star anise & vanilla for spice bread underlined in hazelnut & oilve oils -> purple sugar plums -> miraculously ends where it began on blueberry; after-length reverberates inside a spice rack... the farther away it gets, the more magnified the effects into molasses
Quality 19 / 20
An indifferent ferment meets calibrated roast (light by Marcolini standards). Compared to the once-but-no-longer ‘exclusively warranted’ Chuao (Amedei’s), this has less horsepower, less of a dense vortex effect, & more linear control; less sugar too, but paradoxically lower amplitude (because of higher butter ‘n cream - that ray of light missing in Amedei’s masterpiece) & greater clarity.
Which is “better” depends on orientation: both supermodels - one male, the other female - & quite possibly sourced from different locales since Chuao cacáo has been transplanted to grow elsewhere in Venezuela, indirectly bypassing the exclusivity of the farmers co-op that controls the crop in the Chuao Valley.
Which is “better” depends on orientation: both supermodels - one male, the other female - & quite possibly sourced from different locales since Chuao cacáo has been transplanted to grow elsewhere in Venezuela, indirectly bypassing the exclusivity of the farmers co-op that controls the crop in the Chuao Valley.