Oliver Kita
Impact
Unreal showmanship presented by Wonka re-personified: a randy coiffed MC tatted out in thick purple-rimmed eyewear & salmon-colored suit. Reality-challenged as far as the chocolate itself goes... morphing back to Batman’s Joker. For the velvet mafia on a media-savvy ride - panache & fashion over power & finesse.
Presentation 5 / 5
Corporate F.I.T. tick – & more self-promotion than Fabio, including emotional cheerleading: the hypnotic command “Mind – Body – Chocolate Everyday”; “emballage” appears ponderously heavy but feels impossibly light; individual pieces are model hunks, several of them Norman Love-like knock-offs
Aromas 5 / 5
Marlboro masculine (leather, wood, tobacco, & wet horse) juxtaposed against the visuals in a Brokeback Blvd macho-effete conflict
Textures/Melt 7.1 / 10
| Shells: | semi-thin |
| Centers: | soft yet substantial |
Flavor 38.6 / 50
forward tilt just slightly past the mid-point & relatively low sugar
Quality 22.8 / 30
Good frames / bad lenses. Beginning stage, & too early to tell whether an ambitious flash in the pan, or someone with guts & stamina to catch fire.
Selections
| Couverture: | Valrhona |
Palet d’Opium – there’ll be no wars over this seeing how this is at war w/ itself; blood orange & lapsang inject each other for a smoky blue cheese combo that Kubla Khan, DeQuincey, Poe, Burroughs, Keith Richards, & Kate Moss would gladly withdraw from – cold turkey
Brut – plain though not so simple Dark-on-Dark truffle; a cream polish applied to that signature black-fruited Valrhonic twang - the chocolate force field from Venzy (+ maybe a little Manjari thrown in for added zing)
Palet d’Oliver – the e-pomp-ymous ganache; bold Bordeaux cassis w/ arresting caramel undertow that makes the blackcurrant liqueur stand upfront & static
Palet d’Argent – vanilla bean matched to a molasses-soaked cacáo w/ just enough passion flower for some powdery silver-screen incandescence
Almond Grand Marnier – relatively unsweetened, mealy marzipan w/o the cloying paste; a recessed orange liqueur hushes almond toward calm neutrality
Pistache – basically same as above, but Grand Marnier swapped out for pistachio; nondescript
White Peaches & Cream – thick shell holds canned peaches in cream syrup
Cognac Crème Brulé – a liquid oozy gun of heat (liquor) w/ so much going on it narrowly evades canceling itself & instead stacks vertically over caramel, cardamom & vanilla; perhaps the best incorporation of the set
Galaxy Way – overly-sugared candymonium; a truffled caramel that sticks it close to home
Caramel du Sel – the salt may be from Hawaii but the texture & taste is pure bedrock Flintstones that hardens into a volcanic boulder even Dino won’t bite
Espresso Double Shot – cocoa & coffee grinding it out in a nibbed truffle stumblin / mumblin smackdown
Scarlet Caramel – another rare thick-shelled armor, dressed mostly in pink, housing naked strawberry in a bed of gauzy caramel that finishes on some darkly reverberating, Scarlet O’Hare, post-bellum ash flint; formidable
Brut – plain though not so simple Dark-on-Dark truffle; a cream polish applied to that signature black-fruited Valrhonic twang - the chocolate force field from Venzy (+ maybe a little Manjari thrown in for added zing)
Palet d’Oliver – the e-pomp-ymous ganache; bold Bordeaux cassis w/ arresting caramel undertow that makes the blackcurrant liqueur stand upfront & static
Palet d’Argent – vanilla bean matched to a molasses-soaked cacáo w/ just enough passion flower for some powdery silver-screen incandescence
Almond Grand Marnier – relatively unsweetened, mealy marzipan w/o the cloying paste; a recessed orange liqueur hushes almond toward calm neutrality
Pistache – basically same as above, but Grand Marnier swapped out for pistachio; nondescript
White Peaches & Cream – thick shell holds canned peaches in cream syrup
Cognac Crème Brulé – a liquid oozy gun of heat (liquor) w/ so much going on it narrowly evades canceling itself & instead stacks vertically over caramel, cardamom & vanilla; perhaps the best incorporation of the set
Galaxy Way – overly-sugared candymonium; a truffled caramel that sticks it close to home
Caramel du Sel – the salt may be from Hawaii but the texture & taste is pure bedrock Flintstones that hardens into a volcanic boulder even Dino won’t bite
Espresso Double Shot – cocoa & coffee grinding it out in a nibbed truffle stumblin / mumblin smackdown
Scarlet Caramel – another rare thick-shelled armor, dressed mostly in pink, housing naked strawberry in a bed of gauzy caramel that finishes on some darkly reverberating, Scarlet O’Hare, post-bellum ash flint; formidable