Box Chocolate Review

DeBauve Gallais

Info Details
Country France   (Paris)
Style Classic      
lo
med
hi
CQ
Sweetness
Intensity
Complexity
Impact
Rounding up a smooth US$100+/lb from a former pharmacist to King Louis XVI. Keeping with medical tradition, these are a clinical trial of palliatives, placebos, & poisons; someplace between science & art - while being neither. A high P/E ratio (price/efficacy) well above what the market should bear when in actuality it's the kind of place with bikes locked up outside of it ala so many Chinese take-outs awaiting delivery.

Presentation   4.2 / 5
medicine chest filled w/ glass vials
Aromas   2.6 / 5
under the bus; DOA
Textures/Melt   6.4 / 10
Shells: thin
Centers: waxen butter points
Flavor   37.3 / 50
low-cocoa fill; pedestrian
Quality   19.7 / 30
Uneven; 2nd hand Cluizel
Selections
Couverture: Cluizel
FILLED-CHOCOLATE
Rum Caramel – Milk casing gets lost in the dry-wall ganache that sticks like egg whites in Mighty-Putty™ around the tongue
Dark over Easy – Milk interior kissing-in on cream then a Criollo-like berry spray; French finery
Anise - stucco-finished cube; a BruCo w/ cream & sugar making for a Belgian bastard
Kirschwasser - half-dome shell (Dark w/ inlay of Milk) – fortified aseptic wash that stays warm from the roof to the bottom of the GI cellar
Dark Caramel – a minivan pull on the teeth; frightfully-expensive cheap-imitation; the flecked-session Dark-on-Milk similar to thousands of others
Earl Grey – veritable tea house in a truffle; pretty (French) forward; exuding from tip to tail, inside a dark but light corona of cocoa
Raspberry – molecular berry design matched by a clinically-hatched flavor; for lab use only
Milk Hazelnut Praline – a womanizer; sweet & sweeter still, by crunch & butter toffee
Milk Coffee – whipped froth w/ a center nib flecked by gold tip on top; again, sugar for the masses but massively sweet
Plain Praline - forces cocoa to fight thru the by-now signature mix – over the cream, under the butter – before lingering along the fat
Hazelnut Buttercup – excellent; pure delivery, stretching the heavy underside, all the way up to ineffable lightness; a truth teller
Anise in a Dixie – better, more immediate than its cousin though still w/ similar shortcomings
Walnut-topped Marzi-grub-pan Goulash – culinary disaster
Coffee Bean Dark – saturated Milk-fat ganache thumbing the café off; a non-notion
Classic Truffle – a C-Spotter™; all the ratios in precise balance despite being less dark & stark than ultimately preferred

TASTING COLLECTION
Carre de Java (50%) – disguised Milk Chocolate; Cluizel’s GrandLait
Carre a la Vanille (60%) – slight citrus wash over vanilla; cocoa lite

BARS
Principe Sao Tome (70%) - 2 islands in 1; unblemished surface; dark violet color; butter to the touch; earth scent & wet woods on the rubdown; flavors -> dried fruit-licious w/ citrus to the rear
Santo Domingo (67%) – similar progression... brown suede; fleshy; dullard of dried fruits until an acid twang hits the back

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