Taza Stone Ground Organic Chocolate Review
The immediate scent of chocolate from this is something else and the flavour reminds me of Soma Old School. This is a challenging bar though because of the sugar and cocoa not completely mixed as in other bars. I had this bar awhile ago and setting this post finally live made me remember it all over again and I remember most of all how sweet it was as well as how delightful the cocoa nibs were.
I couldn’t let this melt in my mouth as it is very coarse and the sugar is therefore very intense. It was quite different though and a little nutty from the cocoa nibs. The interesting thing about chocolate is that the size of the chocolate in suspension will change depending on the length of the conching. Since this is “stoneground” it is already setting your expectation for large chunks of the chocolate with the sugar bound lightly together.
This is really quite nice but far too sweet for me. Much like the Soma Old School chocolate bar, it is fun and delicious but challenging. It is difficult to get through for me mainly because of the sugar but I found the delight from the roughly ground cocoa nibs was overbalanced by the raw sugar. I think on balance I preferred Soma Old School but that is because it wasn’t as sweet. I was also thrilled to find I could enter my batch code and get all the information about it! And here it is and look it even says who made my bar!
Batch Information
Variety: 60% Stone Ground Dark Bar
Made On: April 26 2010
Ingredients: Organic roasted cacao, cane sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla bean.
Last Made: March 30 2010
Cacao Origin:
Country of Origin: Dominican Republic
Provincia: María Trinidad Sánchez
Municipality: El Factor (El Pozo)
Area: Reserva Científica Loma Guaconejo
Fermentery Location: Lat. 19.293363, Long. -69.904128
Varietal: Mostly Trinitario; Some Criollo.
Growers & Farm:
Cooperative: Red de Comercializacion Loma Guaconejo
Grower: Fran Batita
Farm: El Yayal
Additional Ingredients:
Organic Cane Sugar – Jalles Machado
Origin: Sertãozinho (São Paulo), Brazil
Whole Biodynamic Vanilla Bean – Villa Vanilla
Origin: Villanueva (Puntarenas), Costa Rica
Organic Cocoa Butter, Natural
Origin: La Red Guaconejo, Dominican Republic
Roast Profile:
Lot Received On: March 29 2010
Lot #: LR31710
Bean Bill: Single Origin Hispaniola Cacao
Roast Date: April 21 2010
Roaster Model: Barth Scirocco 200
Max Temp: 236° F
Roasted For: 48 minutes
Production Info:
Grind Date: April 22 2010
Made By: Mike Schechter & Kellie Silsby
Total # of Bars Made: 1,306 Bars
Wrapped On: April 26 2010
If you can get your hands on their Mexicano Discs, you would likely enjoy them, as they have extra spices/salts/peppers to cut through the sugar. My favorite is the salt and pepper.
Excellent – I’ll have to try and get them the next time I’m in the US. I was really surprised by how sweet this was but noticed all artisan chocolate I got was like this
Hi Judith
My pops sent me this bar as well as the Mexican Discs (read hocky pucks), which in my opinion are even sweeter than the bar and a bit more like eating chocolate sand paper..but kinda fun too. Always wanted to try some traditional stone ground choc..now I have. Not sure it’s something I will seek out though.