Color:	close to ebony w/ a rare appearance for a São Tomé of recessed red pigment
Surface:	beautiful brush plate
Temper:	marble sheen typical for the origin
Snap:	really pops despite airholes in the inside

hammy (possible over fermented & roasted): a cedar box stuffed w/ smoked sausage + green begonia & raspberry leaves -> cream biscuit underneath adds body

Texture:	unctuously round
Melt:	sensuous

red flush -> chocolate blush -> black raspberry tang... all coy & unstinting but a bit desultory -> bitter struts for support break the monotony -> cinnamon & its own vanilla -> flesh of young fresh coconut -> cream tones -> flat grass at the finish; oddly, the hammy packet in the aroma shows only in the aft-taste

Defies both the island from which it came & Richart’s stylistic tendencies. Well-roasted though shy of the house-style, preserving traces of this origin’s characteristic red tarts while respecting those atypical cream components (formed in part by a supreme conche that’s also felt in the texture) to generate Dark-Milk swag, apparently with the help of a generous cacáo butter cut too.

So rumors of a sequestered Criollo pocket on São Tomé may be confirmed. That same butter/cream axis, however restrains amplitude, reducing scale & impact found in Cluizel’s benchmark on the origin (Vila Gracinda), leading to restless indeterminacy... a seeker without a lodestar. Along the way though is some refined & supple flavor.

ING: cacáo, sugar, lecithin