DISTINGUISHED BEANS
Reviewing the best in craft chocolate
Spotlight: 100% Bars
Pacari
Ecuador 100% Raw
Flavor: Relatively little bitterness and a clean finish.
Recommendation: Highly recommended. If you are looking for an intense but smooth and well-rounded raw 100% bar, this is an excellent choice.
Original Beans
Peru Cusco Sacred Valley 100%
Aroma: intense and expressive
Flavor: sour but complex, some natural sweetness. Quite tangy, with notes of wood and vinegar. Great velvety texture.
Recommendation: Recommended. This is on the bolder side of 100% bars, but we enjoyed it. It made a nice contrast to our favorite 100% bars from Pralus and Åkesson
Metiisto
Solomon Islands 100%
Aroma: Rich and complex – you can tell immediately that it’s going to be good. Vanilla, toasted nuts, sweet hay, clover, honey, a little tangy.
Flavor: Rich and buttery with flavors of toasted nuts, hazelnuts, crème fraîche, and almond butter. Complex, too: a little tangy, complex, wood but light, red fruit – dried cherries, balsamic vinegar, little bursts of acidity almost like pop rocks! Not much natural sweetness but not bitter either. Great texture - super smooth and fudgy.
Recommendation: Highly recommended. Everything we’ve tried from Metiisto has been excellent, and this ranks very highly among all the 100% bars we have tried.
Batch info: Best before September 10, 2021
Fresco
Guatemala 100%
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Aroma: Pleasant. Rich chocolate, nutty.
Flavor: A little tangy, not much bitterness. Some dryness, not excessive, like wood, unripe banana, toasted almond skins, unroasted cacao, toasted peanuts. Some pleasant acidity: delicate fruit flavors. A little buttery richness. A slight savoriness like sundried tomato. Sort of an unrefined character.
Recommendation: Recommended. This is a nice 100% bar, although the 70% versions of the same origin really expand the wonderful complex flavors.
Fruition
Madagascar 100%
Aroma: wood, a little savoriness, dried cherry, vanilla, complex sweet spices like root beer
Flavor: some sourness, not much natural sweetness, some butteriness, great smooth texture, a little astringency but not too much. Very smooth melt. Ethiopian coffee – the intense flavor with a lot of acidity and not much bitterness.
Recommendation: Recommended. A very good 100% bar, but a little heavy on the sourness
Batch info: Batch #1; Best by August 2023
OmNom
Peru Gran Nativo 100%
Aroma: buttery, astringent, raisin, sour, savory, vinegar, damp wood – barrel-aged, leather, melted butter
Flavor: great texture, nice richness - butter, some bitterness, a little sourness but not much, some dryness but not excessive, somewhat sour, lemon, sort of savory notes. Some muddy earth.
Recommendation: Recommended, but there are much mellower 100% bars out there if you don’t think you’ll like one that’s quite sour.
Batch info: Best before 11 February 2022
Åkesson's
Madagascar Criollo 100%
Flavor: Strong, tangy flavor, but good for 100%
Recommendation: Recommended.
Marou
Vietnam 100%
Aroma: dusty earth, cocoa butter, hint of red fruit
Flavor: A fair amount of earthiness with some sourness and a classic cocoa powder aftertaste. A little natural sweetness. Overall, well-balanced with a nice range of flavors.
Recommendation: Highly recommended. An intense, well-made 100% bar.
Batch info: Batch 20086; Best by December 29, 2021
Cacao Hunters
Colombia 100%
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Aroma: soy, umami,
Flavor: dark roasted almonds, avocado, macadamia nuts, a slight greenness – like a light roast. Some wood and earth, slight dryness
Recommendation: Recommended. Not too bitter as far as 100% bars go, and fairly tangy. Hint of umami in aroma due to ferment.
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