Soma Chocolate Dominican Republic & Peru Single Origin Chocolate Bars Reviewed
Soma are amazing and I’m not just saying this as a Torontonian. They take immense pride in their work, invest heavily in the business and their people, and they have two great locations serving the people of Toronto amazing chocolate.
Soma work very hard to get the best that they can out of each bag of beans they get. They age the chocolate (or not) as befits the beans and as a result the quality of their chocolate is absolutely top notch. They are some of the world’s best chocolate makers and that’s coming from someone who loves chocolate!
The two bars reviewed below were from a large bag I was gifted by Soma and I distributed the chocolate amongst my fellow bloggers. These bars I chose to review together because of the percentages and flavour profile.
Dominican Republic – This is absolutely gorgeous with an instant acidity, fruits and fudgy chocolate notes. The label says it is “Robust fruity and mildly astringent. Notes of dried fruit, tobacco & cranberries” and I absolutely agree. This is a beautiful chocolate with such a small particle size that it feels like satin in the mouth and melts beautifully. The lingering finish is like freshly baked fudge brownies. OMG you need to buy like a dozen of these bars!
Apurimac Peru – This chocolate is singled out by Soma as being grown in a sustainable way. They label it as having citrus notes and notes of baked brownies. The nose has a slight hint of nibs and the taste is lighter than the DR, and I get that citrus in the middle – like a grapefruit skin kind of citrus. I detect some kind of hint of roast which might be the baked brownies flavour. Quite radically different from the DR but still lovely and that light, airy citrus middle is absolutely divine! It may be a 66% but it’s got body and gravitas.
These two bars are quite different and yet both are brilliant in their own ways. I love the Dominican republic bar but the Peru is also brilliantly awesome. Soma really know how to best treat their chocolate though so no matter what you get you’ll be happy with delicious chocolate!
When I was going to Peru last year to meet cocoa farmers, SOMA was kind enough to gift a bag of the Apurimac bars for us to share with the farmers, so that they could taste chocolate made from Peruvian cocoa beans. I had expected a bit more of an enthusiastic response from them as to the flavour of the chocolate. But the Apurimac is not one of my favourite Peruvian bars either. I do love Peruvian chocolate for its fruitiness, but I think you’ve hit the nail on the head in your review when suggesting the fruitiness in this bar is rather tart (as in the zest of a grapefruit.)
Ya – still awesome (thinking about other possible darks) but not quite my cup of tea (and I guess not theirs either!)