Madre Chocolate Hibiscus Dark Chocolate

 

1.5oz (43g) bar

Ingredients: Organic fair trade cacao beans, o. cane sugar, o. cocoa butter, Mexican whole vanilla, o. hibiscus, o. bergamot oil

Corporate Info: (Altered from 8/11/12) Madre is basically brand new (circa early 2011), the brainchild of a traveler working on social justice in Central America and a botanist with a focus on food and medicinal plants. There's a lot of passion behind everything written about the company: the “About Us” page of their website, the focus on ecology and direct contact with cacao farmers, the now-funded Kickstarter, and even reviews by fans of their chocolate and their shop in Kailua. The cacao is grown organically, some on the Big Island (in the only U.S. state in which this is possible) and some in Central America, and they make the chocolate bean-to-bar in Hawaii. Madre has already been talked up in Saveur and, at greater length, by food personality Aida Mollenkamp after she visited the founders in Hawaii.

Madre currently produces two lines of chocolate, one inspired by Latin American cacao and flavorings and the other using Hawaiian cacao and flavorings. As you might imagine, this is not cheap chocolate: All bars are 1.5oz (half the size of most common chocolate bars) and range from $6 to $10 each on the website, and they may cost slightly more in stores. The bars are sold all over Hawaii, but they look to be spreading quickly to high-end and specialty stores in the U.S. and abroad.

Today's Bar: Hibiscus in 70% cacao, which I picked up from Madre's booth at the Northwest Chocolate Festival back in September. This bar is made with Dominican cacao, and includes not only hibiscus but also bergamot oil as a flavoring. I expect the hibiscus to impart a bright, sour note; I'm less familiar with bergamot outside of Earl Grey tea, but Wikipedia says that it's the bitter, sour, fragrant skin of the citrus fruit that is used as a flavoring. Here, I assume it will add complexity to the clear tartness of the hibiscus.

Appearance: Madre's usual funky mold, semi-glossy, in a pleasant, creamy-looking orangey brown.

Smell: Slightly acrid, fresh, and spicy.

Taste: I tried this bar at the festival and liked it, so though I didn't remember the nuances, I knew I would enjoy it. The chocolate itself is crunchy melting to waxy, rich, and not too sweet. I can definitely sense the bergamot in here, as the flavor is layered, with the bitter, fragrant citrus rind oil, the straightforward, fruity sourness of hibiscus, the fresh, tropical cacao, and the sweet sugar to anchor it all.

Conclusion: Madre Chocolate Hibiscus Dark Chocolate is a well-crafted layering of fresh, sweet, sour, and bitter flavors.

Michel Cluizel Los Anconés (organic; 67% cacao)

70g (2.46oz) bar

Ingredients: Organic cocoa, o. cane sugar, o. cocoa butter, o. Bourbon vanilla pod

13g sugar/40g serving (32.5% by wt.)

Today's 67% cacao bar comes from Michel Cluizel's line of chocolate from individual plantations, in this case Los Anconés on the Carribean island of Hispaniola (the island shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti). I can't remember when I bought this bar, but unlike the one pictured on the website, mine contains only organic ingredients. I would guess that a current Los Anconés bar would taste similar, though I'm not certain. The box explains that the chocolate has been “lengthily worked,” which I imagine means a super-creamy texture.

Corporate Info: (copied from 5/19/11) I've seen Michel Cluizel's black boxes at all the fancy shops, and I've bought the confections. When I googled the brand I found pages and pages of commercial sites, reviews, and news bytes, though nothing especially edifying. I'll just tell you what the Cluizel site says: Michel Cluizel is a French brand (there's even a museum/experience in Normandy) that started in 1948 and opened a U.S. subsidiary in 2004. It's not chocolate you can feel socially responsible about, but the product quality seems to be well respected.

Appearance: This bar has a totally different imprint than the last Cluizel product I reviewed, but it's still beautifully and sharply molded. The chocolate is attractive too: smooth, slightly glossy, slightly reddish brown.

Smell: Nice, rounded dried fruit. Interesting but not pungent or intense, with nothing standing out.

Taste: Texture is crunchy slowly melting into super smooth; I buy that “lengthily worked” claim. Flavor is very friendly: Not too sweet, not at all sour, very little bitterness or tannins. Not obviously fruity, but there is that touch of pleasant, caramelized brightness, maybe like golden raisins. The box says “liquorice wood, then red berries and green olives.” I can see the licorice—but yes, the straight root, like you might have in tea, just that super-subtle sweetness. If you're not looking for it, you won't taste it at all. Red berries? Okay, sure, but this isn't a fresh, fruity tasting chocolate, so that's also subtle. I'm not getting green olives.

Conclusion: Michel Cluizel Los Anconés is super smooth, subtle, pleasant, and satisfying.

Moonstruck Dominican Republic Single Origin Dark Chocolate 72% Cacao

 

2oz (56g) bar

Ingredients: Cocoa beans, cane sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla bean

7g sugar/25g serving (28% by wt.)

I've seen Moonstruck's distinctive bright-and-white boxes in stores, but I finally bought this not-cheap bar when sampled it at a festival.

Corporate Info: Portland, Oregon-based Moonstruck makes bars and confections, single-origin and blends, plain and flavored. The company once operated a bunch of chocolate cafés around the country but scaled back a couple years ago to the Portland area alone, and made the news recently for working with a special, rare cocoa bean. While Moonstruck's chocolate is neither organic nor fair trade certified, the company claims that it works with vendors it trusts to eschew abusive labor practices. Your comfort level with this state of affairs may vary.

Appearance: Standard: reddish brown, neither glossy nor dull.

Smell: Fruity.

Taste: Smooth, bright, and fruity. Complex and well balanced.

Snooty Reviewer Stuff: This is actually a really interesting bar. I'm tasting tart red fruits like raspberry and dried cherry, something nutty and tropical like cashew, and a background note of pleasant perfume, maybe vanilla and caramel. A bit tannic. This isn't seriously “out there”—pungent or seriously mouth-drying—but it's not mild and sweet either.

Conclusion: Moonstruck Dominican Republic Single Origin Dark Chocolate 72% Cacao is complex, interesting, and balanced.

Taza Chocolate Stone Ground Organic Chocolate 80% Dark

3oz (85g) bar

Ingredients: Cacao beans (Dominican Republic), cane sugar, cocoa butter, whole vanilla beans. (All certified organic.)

I found this bar at a specialty chocolate shop, and at $8.00 ($2.66/oz) it was one of the most expensive I’ve considered. (I later saw it for a few cents less elsewhere.) I was able to taste it in the store, and I elected to buy it despite its high price because of the stone-ground texture, which was unlike that of other chocolate I’d eaten.

Taza Chocolate’s 80% bar is gritty and almost dusty; whatever roasting and other processing may go into it, to me the texture makes it taste more “raw” than smoother, creamier bars. The flavor is also somewhat challenging, because it has a clear sour note, coming across as bright rather than deeply fruity, with a bit of a bitter aftertaste. (I’ll be interested to see if this flavor profile will show up in other single-source bars from the Dominican Republic.) Because of the texture, the sugar's sweet counterpoint is distinguishable from the sour and bitter flavors—it’s almost as though the bar's flavors sit side by side in a mixture rather than being melded into one taste experience.

Conclusion: Taza Chocolate’s 80% bar is challenging and relatively expensive, so it’s not for everyone and won’t be a Chocolate Basket staple. On the other hand, if you’re interested in trying something different I’d recommend searching it out. Besides, it’s just a chocolate bar--it’s not like you’ll have to skip a car payment for this sort of luxury.

*You can read more about Taza Chocolate’s bean-to-bar process here.