Impact
A release from a company going thru the chocolate equivalent of boot camp - ‘bar camp’ – working out the kinks & occasionally tripping over Carrie's hand reaching up from the grave, pulling everything/everyone down with her.
Appearance 4.4 / 5
| Color: | dark brown bending towards maroon |
| Surface: | sticking with the theme / motto (“discover the roots of chocolate”), Mayan glyphs adorn the molding |
| Temper: | smudged |
| Snap: | a bit feeble in the midrange; undifferentiated edge (the perfect but fragile waif?) |
Aroma 8.9 / 10
intensely caramelized, vanilla driving the scent home -> shifts to peanuts against a background leather... positively Snickered if quite manipulated
Mouthfeel 11.2 / 15
| Texture: | disaggregated as anal beads |
| Melt: | dramatically accelerates as it jiggles thru |
Flavor 37.6 / 50
a chocolate’s chocolate -> quickly rolls into Snickers™ -> faint raspberry at the edges occluded by a dark vanilla painted on pretty thick -> pays it forward to an overbearing carob & treacle, weighs in heavily, downcast toward rubber & tar swamp -> wheels out tamarind as a spare tire -> goes down throat-catching peanut skin & ever black mondo grass
Quality 14.1 / 20
Represents a significant upgrade from the home-kitchen food-processors that got Madre its start. Now it jerry-rigs sundry equipment for smoother contours & better integration of elements.
One characteristic remains the same however thru the changeover: the house preference for clear pronunciation of one or more of the components (witness the full flower treatment of its Cacahuaxochitl). Specifically, in this case, vanilla; quite emphatic & within a whisker of excessive for a seed-crop type that inheres with a resident vanilla-tone all its own.
Along with the added cocoa butter, it pulls the shades on that ripe raspberry sunspot gleaned in Potomac’s bar – from the very same Upala, CR allotment brokered by John Nanci of Chocolate Alchemy.com. That one likewise weighs in at 70% (though without add’l butter & no vanilla).
Perhaps Madre elects to also cover for some of the bittering in this cacáo type.
The difference really forces & drags the bar down. Good, such as it is, yet nowhere near its equilibrium let alone its optimum.
ING: cocoa bean, sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla
Reviewed May 2011
One characteristic remains the same however thru the changeover: the house preference for clear pronunciation of one or more of the components (witness the full flower treatment of its Cacahuaxochitl). Specifically, in this case, vanilla; quite emphatic & within a whisker of excessive for a seed-crop type that inheres with a resident vanilla-tone all its own.
Along with the added cocoa butter, it pulls the shades on that ripe raspberry sunspot gleaned in Potomac’s bar – from the very same Upala, CR allotment brokered by John Nanci of Chocolate Alchemy.com. That one likewise weighs in at 70% (though without add’l butter & no vanilla).
Perhaps Madre elects to also cover for some of the bittering in this cacáo type.
The difference really forces & drags the bar down. Good, such as it is, yet nowhere near its equilibrium let alone its optimum.
ING: cocoa bean, sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla
Reviewed May 2011