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Info Details
Country USA   
Type Semi-Dark   (70%; Beta Batch M-1)
Strain Hybrid   (modest Criollo)
Source Madagascar   (Sambirano Valley)
Flavor Twang   
Style New School      
lo
med
hi
CQ
Sweetness
Acidity
Bitterness
Roast
Intensity
Complexity
Structure
Length
Impact
Swallow this: from ex-NASA technicans, programmed perhaps during the last desperate hours of the Phoenix Lander before it lost contact with Earth & went on a weekend bender thinking that Mars was a chocolate instead of a planet.

A beta blow-job #1 in the Tcho shop... replete with digitally-precise pneumatic sucking.
Appearance   4.8 / 5
Tcho upping their game
Color: medium-brown / pink tint
Surface: well-scored, molded, & clean save for minor dust flecks & chips
Temper: nearly glassine
Snap: too little treble speaks trouble (+ early stage bloom along the breaks)
Aroma   7.4 / 10
a pipe exhaust: smoke entrails (odd for a Mad) float above some fudge on the bottom -> in between mostly BMX action (vinyl, rubber, & latex); nothing of its advertised namesake nor any juicy citrics found in the aromatics of its base material (Tcho's Citric Nibs) -> aerates latent jackfruit & banana leaf
Mouthfeel   12.6 / 15
Texture: (soy) smooth
Melt: metronomic like digital pneumatics (noticable lecithin); clears w/o much astringency
Flavor   34.3 / 50
eye-popping pineapple /ginger -> menthol mint & eucalyptus -> juniper berry... all in quick succession as cacáo tannins desperately catch its breath to keep up... -> guts go slackline as butter, jackfruit, & soy lecithin suck in the mix, further mucked by vanilla -> small back-bitter spawns cocoa fudge... echoing deep & sometimes dirty in the after-draw
Quality   13.7 / 20
Neither the best nor cleanest batch, as foretold by Tcho's inadequately winnowed Citric Nibs. (Both strangley invert their Aromatics / Flavor; the aroma in the Nibs incredibly citric while tastes anything but; & just the reverse here).

This, a top-heavy bar with too little support in the structure, & what appears – mainly framed by vanilla – muddles the picture, despoiling much brilliance in the citrus.

Madagascar’s default setting is acidic to begin with & this bar just over does it. An easy-going roast (hence only light Maillard Reactions generating negligible caramel/chocolate depth, missing earth ‘n chert elements) hooked up to a medium conche (simultaneously preserving & releasing the acidity intact). The approach taken shows an imbalance to force this origin to conform with Tcho's "flavor-wheel" thru over-weaning tweaks & filters to prove a marketing point, without fully knowing the ropes, & failing to get a real bead on the bean’s DNA expression.

ING: cocoa mass, sugar, cacao butter, soy lecithin, vanilla

Reviewed Spring 2009

  

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