Impact
French woman Jeanne Calment died in 1997 at the age of 122, making her the longest verified living person in history at the time.
This baby lasts almost as long... but on '4th & even longer' it came oh-so-close to completing a Hail Mary pass for a cosmic touchdown.
It has been said over & over again, so let's repeat it for the godzillionth+1 time, that Theobroma cacao is the "food of the gods". Clearly they needed help on this one & called in ace fixer Franck Morin from the south of France to pull off some prestidigitation (one of the darkest semisweets around) of near miraculous proportions (with a super tonic afterlife).
Damn, so close. Still, what an afterglow...
The Afterglow of All-Time: this image shows the postscript of the Big Bang, the cosmic microwave background, as captured by the European Space Agency's Planck space probe. The radiation was imprinted on the sky when the universe was 370,000 years old (over 13 BILLION years ago). It shows tiny temperature fluctuations that correspond to regions of slightly different densities, representing the seeds of all future structure -- the stars & galaxies of today. (AP Photo/ESA, Planck Collaboration via NASA)
This baby lasts almost as long... but on '4th & even longer' it came oh-so-close to completing a Hail Mary pass for a cosmic touchdown.
It has been said over & over again, so let's repeat it for the godzillionth+1 time, that Theobroma cacao is the "food of the gods". Clearly they needed help on this one & called in ace fixer Franck Morin from the south of France to pull off some prestidigitation (one of the darkest semisweets around) of near miraculous proportions (with a super tonic afterlife).
Damn, so close. Still, what an afterglow...
Appearance 4.1 / 5
| Color: | pastel rouge |
| Surface: | brush stroked |
| Temper: | hazed |
| Snap: | pierced ears |
Aroma 7.5 / 10
sweet fire
big roast + sugary ferment, call it 'grilled fruit'
veers verdant & more toward traditional Peruvian soil before settling into spiced tea time
big roast + sugary ferment, call it 'grilled fruit'
veers verdant & more toward traditional Peruvian soil before settling into spiced tea time
Mouthfeel 11.7 / 15
| Texture: | dry & powderful |
| Melt: | little fat curds |
Flavor 38.4 / 50
dried sweet cocoa -> soil / greens lent out from the Aroma (generalized as pau d'arco) -> brief candy corn (huh, in a Peruvian chocolate?) -> back to the soil in an odd mud-sugar complex -> rear sour comes fore... potent naranjilla... lined in, strangely, caramel (a hangover from the earlier candy corn) -> black walnut bark -> very dry cocoa Vermouth -> tremendously persistent after-linger
Quality 13.7 / 20
Bizarre yet evocative of close-to-the-land from whence it came.
Sour candy & dark Earth in a 63%? Big, bold & bad.
In the new choc era of ever-escalating cacáo-percentages, 63% usually signals someone got caught out there & was forced to take delivery on an orphaned seed lot.
37% sugar + 4% to 8% neutral cocoa butter (to further act as an additional psychological sweetener) means a cocoa mass of just a bit over half. The kind of stuff best suited for candy giants to burn 'n smother in vanilla; or the reject pile.
Sho'nuff the flavor-proper during the actual melt leaves much to be desired. But it grows more satisfying the longer & farther away it gets after its complete meltdown.
Morin, an optimizer specialist, hits all the levers to control these rambunctious seeds. He pulls off a prestidigitation (one of the darkest semisweets around) of near miraculous proportions (with that tonic aftermath).
A restoration project on an otherwise unsalvageable allotment.
INGREDIENTS: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, lecithin
Reviewed August 13, 2013
Sour candy & dark Earth in a 63%? Big, bold & bad.
In the new choc era of ever-escalating cacáo-percentages, 63% usually signals someone got caught out there & was forced to take delivery on an orphaned seed lot.
37% sugar + 4% to 8% neutral cocoa butter (to further act as an additional psychological sweetener) means a cocoa mass of just a bit over half. The kind of stuff best suited for candy giants to burn 'n smother in vanilla; or the reject pile.
Sho'nuff the flavor-proper during the actual melt leaves much to be desired. But it grows more satisfying the longer & farther away it gets after its complete meltdown.
Morin, an optimizer specialist, hits all the levers to control these rambunctious seeds. He pulls off a prestidigitation (one of the darkest semisweets around) of near miraculous proportions (with that tonic aftermath).
A restoration project on an otherwise unsalvageable allotment.
INGREDIENTS: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, lecithin
Reviewed August 13, 2013