I have a bit of a soft spot for Taza Chocolate. Their distinctive chocolate is unapologetically unrefined and it’s all the better for it.
Taza describe their chocolate as stone ground, but that’s a bit of a misnomer. Most small-batch artisan chocolate is ground with granite stones, but what makes Taza different is how long they do it for. Modern chocolate bars can be refined and conched for 70 hours or more, resulting in incredibly small particles, a smooth texture and that distinctive snap when you break a piece.
Taza’s approach is much closer to early chocolate making. The cocoa beans are more coarsely ground, sugar and flavours are added, it’s ground a little more, and then it’s done.
The result is a chocolate with a coarse, crumbly texture that’s more like a biscuit than the chocolate you’re used to. It still tastes like chocolate, but the chocolate flavour and sugar are more distinct. This particular creation is just 50% cocoa solids, making it much more like a confectionery than a dark chocolate.
Taza make a variety of flavours, from chile to coffee and even Salt & Pepper which Michael reviewed a couple of years ago.
This cinnamon version is definitely one of my favourites. The cinnamon works perfectly with the biscuity texture and sweet taste. It’s a gentle, warming flavour rather than something overpoweringly spicy. The texture is crumbly, and it doesn’t melt in the mouth so much as dissolve. Don’t let that put you off though, it’s really rather nice – not to mention addictive.
But what I like best about Taza Chocolate Mexicano Cinnamon is that it perfectly straddles the line between real bean to bar chocolate and confectionery. It has a flavour and texture that will attract kids and grownups alike, and with just three ethically sourced ingredients – organic cocoa beans, organic cane sugar and organic cinnamon, it has the credentials I look for in a real artisan product.
I’m always on the lookout for new British bean-to-bar chocolate makers. By my calculations, there are currently just nine businesses in the UK making small batch chocolate from the bean commercially. Nine.
That’s nothing, but it’s still three times what it was a few years ago. More and more chocolatiers and chocolate lovers are having a go at making chocolate themselves, rather than buying it in, and I think we’re going to see a huge growth over the next few years.
Forever Cacao are based in Powys, Wales, where they make just one product; an 80% dark chocolate bar made from raw Peruvian cocoa beans.
The bar is very simply wrapped in thin foil and paper. There’s no attempt to replicate the current fashion of thick wallpaper-like wrapping here. It’s all about the chocolate.
The bar has a rich, dark red colour with a very glossy finish. The moulding is simple, but it’s one of the nicest looking bars I’ve seen recently. That gloss is partly down to a fairly high cocoa butter content, and that comes through in the texture. It’s initially very smooth, but as the chocolate melts, there is some graininess from the less refined cacao.
The first flavour that hits you is intensely chocolatey and really rather nice. The bar is sweetened with coconut blossom sugar, and I think that adds its own flavour to the chocolate too. As the chocolate melts though, it’s the raw, green and earthy flavours that come to the front. Unusually for a raw bar, there’s also a bit of a roasted note in there too.
It’s never bitter, but is in quite intense. I really quite enjoyed it, and the more I had, the more I liked it. If you’ve got a sweeter tooth, the flavours will probably be quite surprising, but I do think this is a chocolate anyone can enjoy.
I’m really looking forward to seeing what Forever Cacao come up with in the future. Although I don’t actively seek out raw chocolate, this is a bar that I would be happy to part with cash for. I just hope it helps inspire a few more people to having a go at making chocolate from the bean themselves.
I’ve been lucky enough to try some great milk chocolates recently. From Duffy’s 55% Ocumare to Menakao’s Madagascar 44%. There’s something about a rich, high cocoa content milk chocolate that I just love. And now, I have a new contender for my favourite milk chocolate ever.
Fruition is a small batch bean to bar chocolate maker, based in the Catskill Mountains of New York. Their small, but perfectly formed range of products are made exclusively from Peruvian cocoa beans, and look as good as they taste.
The packaging is simple, but beautiful. Decorated with a geometric cocoa pod motif, with a colour coded label, it neither feels too pretentious or too ‘crafty’. It’s understated, but feels like a quality product.
The cocoa pod motif continues to the chocolate itself. It’s a rich, deep brown colour with a hint of red – something accentuated by the lighting in my photos here. It’s a 60g bar, with no ‘chunks’, but it’s thin enough to break off any size piece you want.
There’s a wonderfully fruity aroma to this bar, and that’s reflected in the flavour. It’s intensely chocolatey, with a deep fruitiness and a hint of liquorice. The small amount of salt, simply enhances those flavour notes without making itself too obvious.
The result is a smooth, chocolatey experience that’s as delicious as it is comforting. It’s more subtle than the Menakao milk chocolate, and more complex than Duffy’s. I just love it, and I think you will too.
While Chocablog has crossed paths with Missouri company Bissinger’s one time before, I hadn’t. But when I was visiting a local store with an ample selection of new and exciting chocolate, one of their bars really caught my eye – Bissinger’s All Natural Coconut Caramel with Red Hawaiian Sea Salt. It all seems a bit excessive, at least on the box because there’s an awful lot of different flavours all thrown together but there’s absolutely no way that I could pass this one up. It just sounded so intriguing.
What it turned out to be, first and foremost, was incredibly messy. Unbelievably so. And the main reason for the messiness was that this was not a bar of caramel flavoured with coconut but a bar filled with caramel which has its back covered in toasted coconut. Lots of it. Just the simple act of eating one square will lead to little piles of coconut all over the place, but there’s still more than enough to contribute to the flavour of the bar.
The mess was also down to the fact that my bar had taken a hit at some point and had burst in a couple of places, leaking caramel all over the place. And that appears to be something that you have to live with then it comes to these bars because even trying to break the pieces apart along the designated lines was kind of difficult, so that lead to more leaking. Basically, anticipate a big sticky mess.
But is it worth it?
Yes. This is a really yummy bar of chocolate. The milk chocolate (which appears to be 38% after digging around on the company’s website) is creamy and the perfect foil for the slightly salty caramel – they go very well together. It verges on being just a touch too sweet for my tastes, but the addition of coconut rescues it by somehow miraculously soaking up all that sweetness and replacing it with toasted goodness right at the end. I still couldn’t eat the whole bar in one sitting, but I made it to the halfway point without much effort.
This is one of those bars that falls into the category of an Eating Chocolate rather than a Savouring Chocolate – nothing wrong with that at all. After all, sometimes you just want to eat some delicious chocolate and this definitely fits the bill. Plus it is made with all natural ingredients and ethically sourced cocoa beans so it can be eaten in good conscience too. Just be prepared to clean up afterwards.
