Impact
Sometimes calling a person or a thing ‘dishwater blonde’ unfairly muddies the name of dishwater.
This, a dirty blonde... a dirty gone-wild blonde.
This, a dirty blonde... a dirty gone-wild blonde.
Appearance 4.1 / 5
| Color: | dishwater blonde |
| Surface: | pinholes the size of caves |
| Temper: | heavy-set haze |
| Snap: | surprising pop & break line |
Aroma 7.2 / 10
instant buttered-popcorn & nuts (shades of Vintage Plantations MC) -> milk caramel tertiary & then only polymerized in foam rubber -> nuts re-assert to toffee-crunch
Mouthfeel 13.4 / 15
| Texture: | voluptuous |
| Melt: | cleaves over the edge |
Flavor 46.7 / 50
royal black mulberry insinuates caramel -> golden gooseberry -> candy corn & cotton candy -> classic Cadbury™-style Milk Choc except acidic as well as malted -> lemon drop out with a parting umami salt shot -> banks offs a kakura nut.... foam rubber the aftermath
Quality 18.2 / 20
Hi-caliber. Grows as the progression goes & gets better along the way until the salted grace note brings this bar to a fabulous crescendo / coda of a close so by the end a thorough conflation of elements accent each other.
36% cacáo-content weighs in fairly heavy for a Milk Chocolate, though the cultivar here from East New Britain Province hits rather lightly overall as gleaned in Zokoko’s Semi-Dark Tokiala, so 36% amounts to a good balance point. That bar rolls with its own onboard caramel; adding milk makes it that much easier. And this bar responds in kind & plenty of it.
True, some cloying action (re: candy corn / cotton candy filler) on the sugar level will annoy when the dentist’s bill arrives. But surprising too that PNG’s wilder side comes thru this unusually tame clonal variety for the origin... the acidity, the peatiness that probably causes the umami moment, & the stamina for extra length held over by an addition of lecithin. Indeed the milk emboldens it just as cream, for instance, can amplify a chocolate's salient characteristics in a ganache setting while its fat carries them forward.
This joins an elite class consisting of Papuasia and Tabuna & moves PNG farther into Java territory where matching cacáo with dairy cows for Milk Chocolate is a natural.
A bar to play equally well at home in front of Australia’s candy-weened grown-ups & on the world artisanal stage.
ING: cocoa mass, sugar, milk powder, cacáo butter, lecithin
Reviewed August 9, 2011
36% cacáo-content weighs in fairly heavy for a Milk Chocolate, though the cultivar here from East New Britain Province hits rather lightly overall as gleaned in Zokoko’s Semi-Dark Tokiala, so 36% amounts to a good balance point. That bar rolls with its own onboard caramel; adding milk makes it that much easier. And this bar responds in kind & plenty of it.
True, some cloying action (re: candy corn / cotton candy filler) on the sugar level will annoy when the dentist’s bill arrives. But surprising too that PNG’s wilder side comes thru this unusually tame clonal variety for the origin... the acidity, the peatiness that probably causes the umami moment, & the stamina for extra length held over by an addition of lecithin. Indeed the milk emboldens it just as cream, for instance, can amplify a chocolate's salient characteristics in a ganache setting while its fat carries them forward.
This joins an elite class consisting of Papuasia and Tabuna & moves PNG farther into Java territory where matching cacáo with dairy cows for Milk Chocolate is a natural.
A bar to play equally well at home in front of Australia’s candy-weened grown-ups & on the world artisanal stage.
ING: cocoa mass, sugar, milk powder, cacáo butter, lecithin
Reviewed August 9, 2011