Next up in my double review: Naive’s dark chocolate with forest honey. The second aroma infused bar I’ll try tonight. Once more I expect a sweeter chocolate bar. How wrong could I be!
This time the bar is produced from a Trinitario cacao beans, lightly roasted and conched for 60 hours.
The cacao originated in Madagascar. The idea of honey added to the mix, in combination with the natural fruits in the Madagascan cacao seems a bit odd at first, but could be an enticing combination.
Bean: Trinitario
Origin: Madagascar
Production: Chocolate Naive – Lithuania
Price: Unknown – sample
Color: A much deeper shade of brown. Powerful looking.
Aroma: Wood, smoke and a very gentle sweetness. Not what I expected.
Taste: A slow and slightly dry start. The chocolate opens with some deep woody tones, lots of tannins and earthyness. Suddenly a gentle wave of floral sweetness flows over you tongue and builds crescendo to a climax, momentarily touching banana and apricot. The texture is once more a bit grainy. Deep cacao aromas emerge once the fruit taste dissipates and are joined by coffee tones popping up in abundance. The aftertaste keeps on going for ages, while oscillating from fruits to tannins and back again. While texture wise this chocolate isn’t really up my alley, I strangely couldn’t resist to break of just another piece to try one more time the glorious aroma switches.
Somehow the honey isn’t really detectable, yet it dissolves in the taste and changes the otherwise acidic and fruity nature of the Madagascan cacao into a full-bodied and powerful chocolate and changes its taste profile entirely. Nice!
