Soma Alto Beni Wild Bolivian Cacao Chocolate Bar Review
I got the chance to buy this Alto Beni Wild Bolivian Cacao chocolate a little while ago and I shared it with some guests at my dad’s one night after the Soma porcelana chocolate. Where I love to eat a piece of the porcelana just for fun, the Alto Beni is more of a journey.
It was called an addiction, when I went looking for it, by a psychiatrist. That could be because I went downstairs and came up with about 10 bars but the one I was looking for was not there. Then I went into the pockets of my coat and came out with another 20 bars. At that point everyone laughed but then they tried the chocolate and they understood. Much like wine, chocolate is delicious, matures with time and brings something different to each bar depending on growing conditions among other things.
Ya… I’m addicted but I think it is a good thing. I mean, I share it with other people so really it isn’t like I’m addicted and HOARDING – I’m addicted and SHARING! I think that should be permissible. Really – there should be nothing wrong with that.
The scent of the chocolate marks it as a complex dark chocolate with a slight woodiness but putting it into your mouth you are immediately hit by the complex spicy woodiness which matures into a dark red berry spiciness. This chocolate evolves into a brownie with molasses chocolate as it fills your mouth with a deep, rich, dense chocolate taste.
This is a much more complex chocolate than it seems and as it melts it changes making it an excellent chocolate to discover. This is a sharply complex contrast to the porcelana which is so smooth and lacking in acidity and really complexity in flavours so as to be purely chocolate. This is complicated with notes everywhere and really wakes your mouth up.
At the end of the evening, everyone understood my adiction/obsession and could see how chocolate was like fine wine and how knowledge of it and tasting it can be complicated and specialist and so much more than what most people relate to as “chocolate”.
- bean to bar | soma | Toronto
I think your addiction is reasonable.
And another Soma bar I’d love to try! Maybe another good reason to finally go on that holiday to Canada?
And I also think you are totally reasonable with your obsession with good chocolate!
I really like the package on this too, it looks all handmade and unique, adding to the allure and making it seem a bit exclusive. You do rather have to hate these people who get to go to all these exotic locations to find beans though 😉
Thanks for this review, Judith. I don’t think I’ve ever tried a Bolivian chocolate bar. I have had Norman Love’s Bolivian truffle and they are divine. And I think I’ve had SOMA’s single origin Bolivian truffle and again, it was good. But I’ll have to try the bar, because if the Bolivian is any bit as good as the Peruvian (Love that Twilight bar!) it will be GREAT!
You and me both with the obsession to fine chocolate. But we are in fact, in the public service, and it is our DUTY to eat the chocolate. One thing I have learned in all this tasting is NOT to eat any chocolate I’m not crazy about. I either give it to my husband (if I’m at home) or I’ll throw it out rather than putting on calories for something I’d rather not have eaten.
I’m thinking of bringing all sorts of bars back with me just so I get to review them as 8h on a plane makes for a lot of time to review 🙂
I’m looking forward to seeing what they have this time. I don’t know if they still have the Bolivian beans as they only get small amounts but hey – just about everything they do I love – that Twilight bar WAS absolutely beautiful!