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Dark

by Cotton Tree
Info Details
Country Belize   
Type Dark   (70%)
Strain Hybrid   
Source Belize   (Toledo)
Flavor Fruits & Flowers   
Style Rustic      
lo
med
hi
CQ
Sweetness
Acidity
Bitterness
Roast
Intensity
Complexity
Structure
Length
Impact
From a tribe of micro-makers, this bar takes it personally so you & the GPS can get right in touch with it: grown by Polonio Cox in San José Village, Toledo District, Southern Belize, Central America; processed by Kendra Green & Angelica Bo a couple miles down the road at The Cotton Tree Lodge using rather primitive tools & methods.

About as home-ground as it gets.
Appearance   3.9 / 5
Color: coral brown
Surface: scored into deep & wide valleys of some Mayan lost-city temple w/ the ziggarnaut tops cut off (Lubaantun-style, for instance); out back a gi-normous swale eddying in a mud-pie
Temper: uneven, probably from plastic wrapper erosion
Snap: rotted & limp
Aroma   9.2 / 10
thick, massive cocoa-fudge cut by sharp sapodilla & rosewoods -> eventually opens pineapple &, admittedly, some compost
Mouthfeel   9.8 / 15
Texture: powderful
Melt: antsy
Flavor   44.7 / 50
papaya slides over powdered cocoa -> slips into fudge -> heliochrysum -> light soursop suffusing cocoa -> pronounced vanilla the bridge to aromatic woods balancing the scheme in faint background bitter/acid bath -> comes out the wash chocolate-pineapple; cashew after-draw + alluring heliotropin (especially its almond-floral component) almost fuses cotton candy
Quality   17.6 / 20
Seemingly benign yet deceptively potent beans – CBS (Cocoa mass-Butter-Sugar ratio) ~2:4:5 attests to that. Mildly fermented inside a heavy-scented wooden sweat box (Manilkara zapota aka sapodilla) imparting its own flavor, a sauna basically, & an immediate plot of territorial rendering. Then applied a light roasting, probably in a convection oven as some portions feel barely baked, generating those undeveloped quasi-raw effects at mid-palate in danger of falling apart... those wood tannins potentially fighting fruit acids but whole vanilla (plaguing the textural mechanics) pulls it back & integrates the package so the rest harmonizes well with itself.

Overall singular taste & fresh-direct if simple & unrefined.

ING: cocoa mass, sugar, cacáo butter, vanilla

Reviewed Autumn 2009

  

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