El Oro
by República del Cacao
Impact
El Oro province in Ecuador, where the cacáo in this bar grows, hails itself as the banana capital of the world. But like that other local legend of gold, El Dorado, this becomes buried treasure, unfortunately submerged under layers of talc.
Appearance 3.9 / 5
| Color: | brown, purple &, living up to its name, sungold |
| Surface: | passport-stamp mold, backed by a wicked whorl of twisted snake head on the flipside |
| Temper: | semi-buffed |
| Snap: | limp |
Aroma 6.1 / 10
double-trouble doubled for troubling quad: hydrocarbons, cheese, dessicated cocoa, paraffin; (aerates to cinnamon however)
Mouthfeel 12.2 / 15
| Texture: | softly similar to its base flavor - talc |
| Melt: | bit accelerated |
Flavor 40.3 / 50
fantastic start - baby banana goes off inside a cherry bomb w/ chocolate bang in its wake, followed by huge cinnamon cloud... the totality - banana spice bread -> settles over flowers like radioactive fallout as nagging & pervasive talcum powder -> mutates via goji berry into orange blossoms & bougainvilleas -> cherimoya (recalling cherry banana) -> Oreo fudge (the mash-up mix of prior bread & talc)
Quality 16.6 / 20
No chocolate maker puts greater focus on single attributes of their beans than República – here a huge banana sweetspot. In the processing chain between drying techniques & storage, however, mishandling is evident; a common problem causing underlying off-flavor. In this bar the relatively higher sugar content creolizes the carboard notes of its label mates into talcum here, as if the skins of the bean made it into the batch instead of winnowed & blown off. A shame really, because otherwise República makes sensationally flavor-specific chocolate. CBS (~1:1:1)