Color:	off-red opium
Surface:	flush solid
Temper:	the dimmer on the light switch set to medium-low
Snap:	plunks the test

what momentarily smells of over-fermentation & smoke-dried (a hambone essentially) blows-up a moraberry jam sweet-spot -> rubber padding underneath

Texture:	ultra glide
Melt:	appreciable length

light fruiting carries over from the Aroma in the guise of jaltomato -> biscuit -> another aromatic, rubber -> black unsweet fig -> licorice with back bitter finger -> both pimento & Mexican pepper leaves, + nasturtium -> thick morro seeds aka Jicaro (Crescentia alata) syrup -> stewed sapote -> stringent grip-hold at the close

Yet another in a line of Xoco Gourmet's catalog. In the last few years the venture, based on a tech investment model, drew up plans to proliferate the landscape with literally millions of seedlings, grafts & clones in Central America, perhaps to the detriment of traditional cacáo tree stocks. Total production goal: 4.4 million trees between Honduras, Nicaragua & Guatemala.

Some better than others, most however taste repetitive enough to stretch -- indeed, pardon the pun, strain -- the definition of varietal. Like people giving each of their fingernails a pet name. K... please, no messages from manicurists & pedicure salons explaining how sensitive each nail bed & cuticle is; that they've individualized feelings which respond to TLC. Understood.

A dark yet inviting 70%. Somewhat stunted (compounds that never really go anywhere) though it develops... however haltingly (no thoroughbred at any rate; neither genetically nor gastronomically). Valiant in the face of such challenges, it cuts a relatively cohesive & compatible profile.

INGREDIENTS: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter

Reviewed July 18, 2013