Santo Domingo
by Hershey’s
Impact
Hershey’s high-lining for some booyah on a carnival ride mash-up - trying to be all things to all people (some fruit, some spice, some sugar to make more nice...) so turns out a little bit of everything, which is something more than nothing. Complexity its undoing: a good number of moving parts fail to come together.
Appearance 4.4 / 5
| Color: | natural brown; slightly translucent (high butter) |
| Surface: | excellent save for grease spatter on back; faux-antique replica mold scored into 10 tiles w/ cacáo pod centered on each |
| Temper: | matte |
| Snap: | mute with crumbling edge (again, butter, indicative here of losing its temper) |
Aroma 8 / 10
weighs in almost equal pitch smoke, tobacco, clear coffee, acid punch (fruit & spice), green olive
Mouthfeel 11.2 / 15
| Texture: | gelatinous duct tape yet somehow smooth |
| Melt: | prolonged in stilted fits & stops & start-ups & speed bumps |
Flavor 38.1 / 50
dry cocoa powder flint -> smoke hit -> fruit flirt (white currant sweet enough to lean toward champagne grapes) -> olive influenced by subtle cream (hmm - the milk) -> whites fully revealed (grape -> pineapple, again w/ ample sugar) & plenty of astingency for a Chablis -> coffee surge... & here flavors lurch & clash – coffee vs. wine w/ acidity rising from fruited backwash, but ultimately loses out to bitter coffee spur -> herbal green finish line – tobacco & wild bay leaf; trace metal aftermath
Quality 14.2 / 20
Begins & ends practically Dutched – in between anything but. Wondering if Hershey’s (or Rausch – the suspected German manufacturer of this) tuned-up customized batches of beans... a level of detail a mass-producer may hardly think about let alone bother with. Promise & potential but poor harmonization. Takes a stand with respectable CBS ~2:3:2 then goes away & fails to follow thru. Chalk it up as a flub & rookie mistake since this is Hershey’s 1st attempt at a serious single origin.