Impact
Belly up to this raw bar, skeptics - this isn't your Neo-Hippie raw food slab. Flavor-tripping Jekyll & Hyde schizzo it is. Blurs the line between vice & virtue. A nose butcher with a fruit-wagging tongue, as if a seed of synsepalum dulcificum (aka 'miracle fruit') got planted inside to swan-out an otherwise ugly duckling of raw cacáo taste into a blushing sweet complex.
Appearance 4.3 / 5
| Color: | polychromatic - purple, orange, red take turns in lightening brown |
| Surface: | cleanest of Pacari's bars |
| Temper: | lustrous |
| Snap: | strong, almost geologic; bewildering too given Pacari's other releases are so limp |
Aroma 8.1 / 10
raw butcher block: oddly emits whiffs of kersone & tar (this is unroasted? or just dried on the side of an asphalt road?) over grape -> cured prosciutto underneath served w/ fried mustard seed -> aerates to creosote, latex, & redder fruit; very approachable considering its status
Mouthfeel 12.1 / 15
| Texture: | semi-seized then... |
| Melt: | collapses & smoothes out nicely |
Flavor 38 / 50
breaks out a rosacea rash... reds all around... cherry leading the pack -> currant -> Cabernet like puff the magic dragon springing a little alcohol ... no backing down against an off-centered chocolate flavor that gradually loses tannic structure... profile starts to randomize & disintegrate, giving way below to the usual raw cacáo factors (caulk, chalk, grout, cardboard, stinking strawflower, fundamental cocoa, etc.) which grow to consume fruit sugars into decay like Carrie reaching up from the grave & pulling everything/everyone down w/ her; yet banana-date the after-length - go figure
Quality 18.2 / 20
Wild fruit concentration. Raw? If so, then this is the only Pacari bar treated to a real conche - at higher speed & shear to generate enough temperature heat to bring out some core chocolate notes & level off (to a degree) the utter flatness that plagues most raw cacáo products. This displays good fruit contour (the function of fermenting) & little traditional chocolate flavor (the role of roasting), & eventually lacks cohesion but easily the first edible "raw" bar around & earns respect. The test for truly "raw" cacáo might be be unroasted AND unfermented (unnecessary for developing baseline chocolate taste; also, temperatures can reach 120+ degrees in ferment sweat-boxes thus destroying enzymes so precious to the definition of the raw food bible).