Impact
Coppeneur, the actual bar-smith behind this, checking into Hotel Chocolat & partying like it’s... 1913... to Stravinksy’s Rite of Spring released the same year, right before the Czar, the Kaiser & WWI ruined a generation of Euros, & blight wiped-out the grand cacáo Nacionals a world away in Ecuador. In the ensuing chaos, they left this treasure back in the room where clever hotel proprietors seized then re-purposed it with their own private label.
Vintage – among the richest all-time finds.
Vintage – among the richest all-time finds.
Appearance 4.4 / 5
| Color: | slate brown w/ purpled inset |
| Surface: | hangs out a thirsting dog-tongue (scored & parched)... |
| Temper: | ... still w/ a wet pearl or two |
| Snap: | barks right up the tree |
Aroma 8.7 / 10
a regal 90%, reserved yet no mistaking pedigree: naturally malted / sweet cocoa-perfume (oncidium sharry blossoms + their light wood counter) -> sparkling glints of mesquite coals light up cinnamon, fuchsia, & camu-camu rendering a ‘pink’ wild-strawberry affect
Mouthfeel 13.1 / 15
| Texture: | slams home massive body weight, further enhanced by... |
| Melt: | ... lecithin to provide some glide for a slow paste |
Flavor 46.9 / 50
fudge roasted darkly over those mesquite coals -> keeps chocolating on until... small fruits appear to overhang from the Aroma (fuchsia / camu) -> breaks a little on iron & hemoglobin... offset by banana to hold its poise -> bitter laurel woods, gentian roots, & humus but enough cocoa butter analogizing plantain (a banana backcross) spares any collapse -> puckers out stringent cohune palm nut
Quality 18.2 / 20
When Coppeneur introduced Hacienda Iara cacáo in several iterations (Dark, Dark-Milk, Brut, etc.) just prior to the label’s meteoric ascent to the heights of Chocodom, its unsweetened 100% cannibal and the biting Rottweiler of a Dunkle 82% were pretty tough on the stomach let alone the taste-buds.
A new season & another crop later & this, sugar-wise, falls in between the middle of those two.
HC (Hotel Chocolat) parallels here what DeBondt’s stellar 90% accomplished for Domori’s Ecuador 100. Both marginally improve the breed.
Outstanding CQ / core chocolate for this or any percentage. Enough savage underbelly remaindered from Coppeneur’s 100% despite a fat layer of cocoa butter (CBS [Cocoa Mass/Butter/Sugar ratio] an obese ~1:4:2) which controls this bar’s beastiality while sacrificing the high esters found in the more raw materials for this bar; namely, Coppeneur’s Iara Whole Bean and Iara Nibs.
The net result neither enjoys the hedonic flourishes of the DeBondt nor suffers the crushing descent into Slitti’s Tropicale hell (also a 90%er from Ecuador).
Just another solid chocolate declaring Coppeneur 'King of the Beans'.
ING: cocoa mass, cacáo butter, sugar, soy lecithin
Reviewed Summer 2010
A new season & another crop later & this, sugar-wise, falls in between the middle of those two.
HC (Hotel Chocolat) parallels here what DeBondt’s stellar 90% accomplished for Domori’s Ecuador 100. Both marginally improve the breed.
Outstanding CQ / core chocolate for this or any percentage. Enough savage underbelly remaindered from Coppeneur’s 100% despite a fat layer of cocoa butter (CBS [Cocoa Mass/Butter/Sugar ratio] an obese ~1:4:2) which controls this bar’s beastiality while sacrificing the high esters found in the more raw materials for this bar; namely, Coppeneur’s Iara Whole Bean and Iara Nibs.
The net result neither enjoys the hedonic flourishes of the DeBondt nor suffers the crushing descent into Slitti’s Tropicale hell (also a 90%er from Ecuador).
Just another solid chocolate declaring Coppeneur 'King of the Beans'.
ING: cocoa mass, cacáo butter, sugar, soy lecithin
Reviewed Summer 2010