I remember seeing “Cuba” on the shelf in the bean storage shed at Pierre Marcolini’s factory and thinking “beans from Cuba? No f-ing way” but I said nothing. It was Emmanuel who was both my tour guide and my translator while I was at the Pierre Marcolini factory who explained that the woman who does all the buying for Pierre Marcolini negotiated for over two years in order to get her hands on these beans.

I had the most amazing time and am hugely grateful to Pierre Marcolini for inviting me into his factory to correct my misunderstanding that the hazelnut bars at Selfridges had bloomed when, in fact, it was the natural oil from the extremely high quality hazelnuts they use simply coming through.

The pods contain white and purple beans due to the cross between Criollo and Forastero. Forastero beans are, unfairly I think, often dismissed by chocolate lovers as an inferior bean. The Baracoa estate is a real gold mine and is defended tooth and nail by Urbano, who is in charge of the itinerant drying and fermentation camps. There are still some pure Criollo strands which were used in the original cross between criollo and forastero. Pierre Marcolini were the first to be allowed to import beans from Cuba since the embargo.

The area this chocolate comes from is quite interesting. This territory has almost 30,000 hectares of heritage forests: two thirds is natural, the rest is planted. The local Forest Enterprise is one of the nation’s largest and leading in the sustainable production of hardwood, mainly cedar and some mahagony. It is also an area for bird watching with a huge array of birds that find a home here.  Baracoa produces around 75 percent of the country’s total cocoa production which is harvested March to June and September to February, leaving only three months when cocoa is not harvested.

So on to the actual taste of the chocolate… Holy freeking cow. Suh-weet even at 78% with a hint of honeyed smoke so subtle even I like it. There is a delicious dried red cherry flavour that starts this bar (one of my favourites) and it evolves into so much more while still staying sweet. Honeyed tobacco leaves play on your tongue warming your palette ever so slightly before the acidity mingles with it to alter it into some delightfully delicious dried fruit. I think I just died and went to heaven. Sorry Soma Chuao – I think I might have a new favourite

I tell you no word of a lie when I say that I loved this bar so much it brought tears to my eyes. I swear it was that good that I teared up and worried husband who thinks I’m a fool for getting tearful over a chocolate bar but then tried some and was shocked by how good it was.  If *I* am getting tearful over this chocolate, imagine how good it must be. No wonder they demanded (and got) the whole shipment of this bar.  The chocolate develops well but in a bit of a mind-blowing way. I had trouble concentrating. Going back for more, that sweet honey flavour (there is no added honey) comes out in the scent as well as the initial flavour before the intense red cherries that come through right away. The tobacco comes in the middle of the melt as the cherries drop back slightly and there comes the acidity in a little more force.

What more can I say but that I will be buying more of these bars for myself. Not only is Pierre’s chocolate spread an orgasm in a jar, this Cuban chocolate bar gave me a mind-gasm.  If you’re like me and you like red fruits, honey and complexity, go and buy some before this limited edition runs out.

Creating a bar from beans is no mean feat. There is the sourcing and the checking and the process of elimination and then monitoring growing conditions and staff conditions and ensuring everyone is being paid properly and that children aren’t being exploited. It’s a full time job to do just that and then there are the beans themselves. Fermentation and drying are key processes but also getting the roasting right is crucial.

Creating chocolate from bean to bar as a small manufacturer is even more fraught with potential disaster as batches that arrive are only pure at the seeming whim of chance.  For Askinosie, they seem to get everything right as they consistently produce amazing chocolate. Without adding vanilla as others do to hide a musty smell/taste of mould in beans and without shelf-life extending and stabilising additives that others add, Askinosie create delicious chocolate that brings out something of the country of origin of the beans.

With Honduras, a million images come to mind and yet the initial taste I got was not what I expected with an explosion of dried red berries and acidity fighting with the leather I got.  No tobacco for me in this bar but lots of that pucker-inducing acid that makes your cheeks tingle and makes you think of a sour lemon (without the citrus). The red berry flavour really assaults your taste buds and goes white water rafting through your mouth, ensuring its aggressive flavour is almost the only thing you taste.

The middle of the melt with deep chocolate notes hides an almost pure nib flavour that is fighting to get through – that woody herbal flavour that screams cocoa nib. That you get at the end after the long fudgy finish has completed its lingering vacation on your tongue. Then as that fades you get the distinctive flavour of raw nibs just hinting at the origins of the beans.

All in all, another triumph of a bar for Askinosie. The perfect roast temperature, the perfect refine and conch time, and just about the perfect temper.  If you like chocolate with dried red berries and an acidic tang, you’re going to fall in love with this bar. Go on, buy yourself one… or twenty

It was on a recent trip to the US that I was tasked with getting some Rogue Chocolatier chocolate bars. I failed until the very last day when I stumbled across them in a CocoaBella shop. Luckily I found some.

Now, purple is my favourite colour and the ‘box’ this bar is in is purple. That helps it score major bonus points there all on its own. I am a sucker for marketing and beautiful packaging. On top of that I loved the illustration of the cooca pod on a tree as though sketched in pencil y someone instead of on a scrap of paper. A doodle but a beautiful one.

The pour is smooth and there are no pieces. Mine broke from frequent transport as it went from SF to Toronto to London in my pocket but even so I think it did a good job of lasting. Of course, purple is my favourite colour and so I fully approve of the packaging. I love the artwork on it and the design, to me, is beautiful. I like the thin bar and accept that it’ll always arrive damaged with me but it helps with the melt.

The bar is a nice rich dark brown colour with a clean smooth finish with only a small mark where the pour finished. The flavour is complex. It has an acidic edge with a delicious rich flavour that has a delicious coffee edge. The sharp tang of fruit comes through which they call blood orange and I’ll believe them and it finishes with some sort of brownie nuttiness. The rich flavour of the chocolate comes through slowly, develops over time and lasts, finishing cleanly.

This is an absolutely delightful bar and while not inexpensive it is well the cost of the bar.

It was on a whim when I was in a giddy mood that I bought this chocolate. I was literally a girl in a chocolate shop and I was surrounded by chocolate from all over the world. The place was San Francisco and it was just a day past my birthday and I knew I deserved something special. I took my time, investigating each and every bar, taking my time to choose. I selected carefully, tweeting as I went, following both heart and mind and this was one of the bars I chose. This bar with the strange name and the silver seal on the closure. This mystical bar of chocolate.

I opened the package and discovered the dark bar. It is a delicious smelling slab of 50g of dark chocolate. It does not reveal the extremely intricate flavours. This bar has a secret and the secret is in the flavour. One thing you can’t know is how it will taste. Too many bars smell delicious and taste awful so I had to brace myself.

Raisins, almonds, cherries and an almost marzipan flavour bursts out from a slightly gritty chocolate. This chocolate is different with a bold intensity that aggressively assaults your taste buds and floods your mouth with the taste of ripe red fruits as it melts. The grittiness tells me they conched less to retain more flavour. The aggressive fruit sits over a dark chocolate that smells of the earth it was grown in. The delicious flavour of the chocolate lingers with an almost nutty edge to the flavour. This is a bar to wake you up and make you feel like you ate a whole slice of fruit cake!

This is a really different chocolate bar from others. With a strongly red berry fruit explosion and almond marzipan flavour from the beans themselves, this could easily be a flavoured bar and anyone who I share it with thinks it is, but the flavour is completely and purely bean-based. Genius.

There is a beauty in a mould poured perfectly which has intricate little designs on it and yet is bubble-free. It speaks of someone who takes the time to do things. It shows a perfectionism you do sometimes get with chocolate but recently I learned that it can be sadly lacking even when perfectionism is what is being vied for.

I can’t really relate. I do plan and I do try but my hair is always frizzy or my clothes end up rumpled or I wear the wrong colour. I am a small disaster zone and if I stand around people trying to accomplish something it invariably goes wrong. I’m like an unlucky charm or an anti-luck charm or something, It’s a good idea not to plan for too much to go right when I’m around

The chocolate is a delicious dark colour and has a scent that fills the room when you open the cellophane wrapping. The smell is of dark chocolate without any bitter edge. It is clean and fresh and chocolate. The smell is almost intoxicating but there is a slightly dry edge to it which doesn’t reveal the ripe fruits within – that is left for you to discover.

A dark, slightly acidic chocolate that melts quickly and cleanly. The chocolate is darkly chocolaty with a rich dried cherry flavour. There is an edge of citrus perhaps with a ripe red fruit tang separate from the cherries. The finish is almost instant, leaving little behind off the flavour but the memory. There is the faintest of notes as the flavour vanishes from your mouth that could almost be woody but it is too fleeting to describe.

The flavour of this chocolate is nice and mild. With the clean, quick finish it is a really enjoyable chocolate bar to discover and it will be perfect to discover time and time again.

Soma Dual Origins Madagascan and Dominican Republic Chocolate Bar Review – There are times when I shop for pleasure and times that I shop out of necessity. Then there are times I shop because I am sad and this was one of those times. I went to Soma Chocolatemaker on a day I was rushing all over town after a funeral before a flight through hell home to the UK. I knew I wanted to buy something but I didn’t know what I hadn’t yet tried and I wanted to buy something so I started throwing bars in a basket along with some hot choc and cookies.

The adventure in Soma is worth it. You discover so many chocolate flavours and at different times of the year you may choose to discover gelato and sorbet, hot chocolate shots or the world’s cutest chocolate bunnies. Whatever you go in to discover, the staff will help, even walking you around the shop if it isn’t too busy – which is rare. Whether it is under siege by yummy mummies or tourists, this shop is almost never empty. Now, I was here having buried feelings of loss and despair under a veneer of stress and work and threw myself into the shop, rushed around and was silent until reaching the cash. Some of the staff knew me and as I was constantly on the verge of tears I just wanted to shop and they seemed to just let me get on with it.

I got to the cash and when I gave my name I found the wonderful Cynthia had left a bag of chocolate for me to share around which I will do by giving away a few bars the Soma Chocolate now! It was the most wonderful thing I had ever experienced and the lovely folk there wanted to share their passion for chocolate with someone who was also passionate and loves chocolate. I go tthe chance to meet one of the managers, chat wine and chocolate and more. But to the bar!

It smells like dark chocolate and tastes like a silky creamy chocolate covered red berry. Slight acidity but with deep red fruits, this chocolate has a delicious raisin edge to it. The chocolate melts with a light creamy texture and very quickly. It has a slight acidity and yet it is extremely delicious and won’t be to difficult to eat.

This is absolutely a bar to let slowly melt in your mouth and dream of summer with its ripe red berries. Let it take you somewhere else away from the here and now. It certainly did for me. It is a delicious bar and really juicy. I think this could become a new favourite if anyone is able to buy it after I’ve bought it all up

Now to the FREE CHOCOLATE part. I will be giving away TWELVE BARS to FOUR WINNERS! Yep – that’s right – you’ll get Soma chocolate! You can’t buy it here in the UK and it costs a fortune to ship so you’re getting awesome chocolate for free from one of the world’s best chocolate makers includingthe chuao! In fact, I’ll do more – a Hotel Chocolat purist bar for each winner! I’ll also add an extra secret THORNTONS chocolate block so each winner will get FOUR yummy chocolate bars and why not some Green & Blacks, Divine chocolate bars and hey maybe some Galaxy Bites! So that’ll be two Soma bars, a Hotel Chocolat Purist bar, a Thorntons block, a Green & Blacks bar, a Divine chocolate bar and maybe some Galaxy bites (subject to me being able to buy some) to FOUR lucky winners!

All you have to do to enter is be from the UK and do one (or all) of the following:

@snowted has won!Tweet: “I’m entering to win @somachocolate from @mostlyaboutchoc & you can too here: http://bit.ly/lo7xBs ” You must be following @mostlyaboutchoc and @somachocolate at the time of the drawing and you can only enter once per 8h period – please don’t spam your followers and bots or obviously automated entries may be discounted.

Katherine De Riera has won!Share any of our posts from our Facebook page and remember to tag us. You can share any or all our posts on your Facebook profile but the shared post has to be there when we select our winner (then you can delete it if you want) Only one post per 8h period will be counted.

Cate Mse Smethurst has won!Comment on any of our posts on our Facebook page. One comment per Facebook post, must be unique and relevant, minimum 15 words to be counted

Coversnails has won!Subscribe to the blog and comment on any post on this blog. One comment per post, must be unique and relevant to the post, minimum 15 words. Does not including other competition posts but you can enter once for each blog post – so you could comment on all almost 300 of them! Holy cow that would be a massive number of entries! Remember to subscribe and verify your subscription first though

I used random.org to pick one winner from each way of sharing

I visited the Scharffen Berger shop in San Francisco and spotted this bar and decided to try it. Now, given who owns Scharffen Berger, it was suggested to me that I not bother. (sarcasm) Apparently small companies bought by larger ones immediately discard what made them unique and merely become another cog in the machine (/sarcasm). As if. *pah*

So I bought the Ben Tre Scharffen Berger bar and decided to rate it as I would any other chocolate (except maybe something like Cadbury or Galaxy – I mean, it wouldn’t be fair in those cases). The packaging had been printed to look like unbleached paper with a rustic, hand-printing on it. It was, of course, not Askinosie and so nothing of the sort but it was a cute effort.

The chocolate itself had a delightful fruity but earthy smell. As you open the wrapper, you absolutely get a deep, dark fragrant chocolate flavour. It’s like when you first open a jar of instant coffee to a certain extent. The scent promises a world of delicious joy and blissful taste. If only the crystals lived up to their bold promises…

The actual flavour of this bar is… different. ‘Different’ is the best word I can come up with really. It has a slightly drying effect in the mouth and as the fruit struggles to emerge it seems almost flattened on the palette by a sour note in the chocolate. It is not a gritty chocolate but it is less refined than some chocolate I have tried. The melt in the mouth is even and not too quick and you are left with a chocolate-covered raisin taste in your mouth and yet… there is that sour note and it really spoils the chocolate for me.

I can’t quite put my finger on why I’m not as big a fan of this bar as others. It smells great, has that red fruit I love and yet I just don’t dig it. It could be that sour note that kept interfering with my enjoyment of the fruits that is stopping me being an enthusiastic fan. It could be the slightly drying effect in my mouth.

All in all while not bad, it isn’t my most favourite bar. I do like it though so if you are in a place where the chocolate I talk about here is unavailable and accessing better chocolate isn’t feasible (this is especially true in the summer months) then I would recommend getting this bar.

When milk chocolate comes with a percentage you know it is posh. This 42% 50h conch milk chocolate bar with fleur de sel sea salt is made with beans that come from Northwest Equador and help with the conserving the authentic arriba cacao. I know a lot of chocolate snobs turn their noses up at milk chocolate and I just don’t understand why. Sure there is added milk. Sure there is less cocoa solids. Sure there is even more sugar but a milk chocolate can be made well and when it is, it is delicious.

When tasting this range of chocolate from Original Beans, I found it difficult to taste what they were describing but with this bar I definitely get the salted caramel flavour and the honey and spice. While I couldn’t quite taste the red fruit as I know the bean well, I expect it is in there somewhere. The rich milk chocolate is best suited to enhancing those caramel notes and honey flavours. These, of course, naturally come to the fore while the more fruity flavours are somewhat overwhelmed by them.

This is a delicious milk chocolate that is not too sweet and has a delightful flavour. It is the ideal high quality milk chocolate for someone wanting to buy excellent chocolate and make sure a tree gets planted as well. Yep, that’s right, they always plant a tree for a bar.

The milk chocolate is not at all oily and tastes sea salt caramel-y as well as having those honey notes. That spiciness is a hint – more at the end – but the whole chocolate is a delight. I just cannot express how yummy this milk chocolate is. Imagine a delicious dark bar which has just been enhanced by the addition of milk chocolate and you might come close to getting a sense of how deliciously lush this bar is.

This 70% chocolate bar says it has a very short 20h conch on the wrapper. This worried me only slightly as I know some chocolate needs to be messed with less to keep more flavour. A longer conch does not mean a better flavour or a smoother chocolate – it means a more forgiving bean sometimes and others a more difficult bean.

This particular chocolate is from the Eastern D.R Congo and by buying a bar of this chocolate you are helping restoring community to protect the last Mountain Gorillas. That’s enough to make anyone buy 3 or 4 bars really and surely the calories of a chocolate bar which is geared towards such a noble cause are cancelled out because you are doing something so positive for the planet. It must work that way…

So upon opening the wrapper and exposing the chocolate to the air, the first thing I do is smell it. This bar smells darker than other dark chocolate. The smoky tobacco spoken of in the tasting notes is right there pushing through your nostrils with a force and making sure you know it is there, just in case you didn’t taste it.

Tasting it, this chocolate develops quickly with several distinct flavours all attempting to gain prominence in your mouth. Te subtle interplay just isn’t here as swirls of tobacco jostle red fruits. In fact, I don’t really get morello cherries steeped in cassis mentioned in the tasting notes come to think of it. Mind you, I do taste chocolate differently in the morning compared to the evening but not by *that* much that I’d miss cherries! I do get a hint of red fruit under the tobacco and it is a deeply distinctive flavour – just not cherries

The melt is moderately quick and it finishes cleanly with the lingering flavour of blackcurrant most strongly finishing off a piece in the mouth. No, not morello cherries steeped in cassis – just blackcurrant It doesn’t feel at all waxy or oily but does feel slightly rough however this could be because I started with the extremely silky sexy smooth porcelana which was like milk chocolate in a dark chocolate bar and this is quite a different bar.

The finish stays with you for awhile and does not dissipate quickly. A delicious chocolate for anyone wanting a bold chocolate and I’ll bet any brownies made from this would have people murdering other people in the line in order to get some. Ya, they would be *that* good. This is chocolate full of awesomeness that would impart its awesomeness on anything it was used for.

I was really looking forward to trying this bar after my experience with the Alto Beni bar from Soma. I think at time Soma inject pop culture references and Alto Beni is another one of those but Original Beans I suppose are a bit more serious with their environmental message that this bar is safeguarding the world’s only cacao forest island and whatnot so no jokes – just serious chocolate. This bar is a much lower 66% and not any higher which made me wonder about the treatment of the chocolate. The conch was also only 24 hours suggesting a particularly temperamental bean. The beans have been harvested from the Bolivian Amazon. Carefully I suppose… and on an island… in the Amazon… >_<

Wait... this is a serious bar. We much be serious and not giggle. Must... not... giggle... think serious thoughts about eco conservation in the Amazon and the rivers and indigenous peoples and... chocolate islands.... *sighs* I just can’t be serious about chocolate islands.

ANYWAY… to the chocolate! When you open the eco-friendly package which includes a number you are able to enter into the Original Beans website to check out their replanting efforts, and open the tightly sealed silver foil, you are greeted with a lovely chocolaty scent. Just plain and straight up chocolate scent – nothing fancy.

Tastes slightly earthy-spicy to me. I don’t get the sun-dried cranberries, melon or tropical fruit but I do get a bit of jasmine tea as suggested on the back cover. It melts very quickly and has a bit of a rougher mouth feel to it but the finish is extremely smooth.

It seems to be a well-tempered bar and has a delicious chocolate finish but with little acidity and I can’t really get my favourite red fruit. I do get very deep chocolate and I do get very slight hints of earthiness but not too much which makes it extremely pleasant. There is a lingering taste of the chocolate in your mouth which is a lively lasting memory of the chocolate