Impact
Reminders of Ovid on Medusa: beautiful as well as terrifying, anticipating the Christian belief (substitute stone for dust) – “stone to stone & to stone you shall return”... an impregnable fortress, once breached, turns up scant but rewarding booty even though this stuff too probably goes back to gorgonized rocks in the bowel guts.
Appearance 4.6 / 5
| Color: | brown, scarlet & grey |
| Surface: | pavement |
| Temper: | fine gloss |
| Snap: | cliff-edge rock |
Aroma 7.2 / 10
concrete & dry: cocoa dust, powdered butter, dried hibiscus & elder flowers, black sesame seed, almond extract, stone basalt, cassis
Mouthfeel 10.4 / 15
| Texture: | a diabolical quarry |
| Melt: | breaking rocks ala Steve McQueen on the Devil Island chain gang |
Flavor 43.1 / 50
sweet almond -> cassis -> controlled bitter black sesame... pac-manning down a long cobbled back stretch -------> bittersweet almond gets cinnamon wainscoting -> peanut -> toasted biscuit crisp -> all turns Medusa-like to metamorphic rock
Quality 17.3 / 20
Long crag-interrupted undulations grow shorter with each passing wave-form in an interminable evolution as rough-hewn texture gets in the way of taste. Once shattered thru, butter moderates flavor profile... keeping bitters in check while allowing acids to percolate up, which together carry forward – albeit at a slow bar crawl – perpetual length (really 2 lengths - the core & then the after-tremors) - appreciated by resisting temptation to swallow instead of letting it all melt... hard as that literally may be... but all of it at the expense of CQ (chocolate quotient). Val's hallmark parameters (deep ferment, quick roast, & judicious conche). CBS 3:4:1