Spicy Chocolates from Choquiero Chocolate
Ambient smell note: I sauteed some bananas with cinnamon because that's what was used at a churrascaria I went to recently as a palate cleanser. In retrospect, almost certainly a mistake. Smells like slightly burnt cinnamon bananas in here.
Mandala Appalachian Wild Chai 70%
Smells very warm. Smells like the back room of Soma Coffee in Berkeley, CA in the middle of winter.
Whaaaaaat is happening with this flavor. Immediately very strange. Um. Chalkey, bitter, "fake chocolate". Definitely chai spice. Really quite disgusting. It's like it starts to suggest that it will be sweet, and then gives me something that definitely does not taste like sugar or honey. I don't know what the fuck it is but I feel betrayed. I think this chocolate is made from powdered hippies mixed with chai sludge. What a disaster.
Choquiero Spicy Chipotle with Cacao Nibs and Cayenne Pepper 73%
Huh, I don't have a good read on the smell yet but it seems to be burning my nose. 0_0 Smells dark and a little chalkey.
Nice melter, at least on the non-cacao-nibs side. Quite sweet. The nibs are distracting but kinda fun. Lovely clean cayenne heat. The base chocolate is liquidy sweet and smooth. Sunlight dripping from a high golden ring. A bright sunshine-pouring noon in the middle of tropical summer. Sweat flung from the bodies of fire festival dancers.
I'm really surprised by this one. Usually, chocolates that try to sell a story about oldness or moral goodness taste and feel bad. But this tastes great, and the texture is actually delightful and fairly unique.
Mirzam Dark Chocolate with Kashmiri Chilli 62%
This, too, is burning my nose a little. Smells sweet and spicy. Sort of friendly.
Tastes very sweet! So much sweetness at the start. Yet I'm not being hit by a bunch of milk powder; maybe this is not milk chocolate. The spice here is subtle. It's more like the glimmer of a hidden stream than like fire. But I'm drawn toward the stream and start to see more of it over time, a sparkling strand that babbles through the clearing, with wild meadow flowers on either side. A picnic spot for a mischievous water nymph child who wants to grow up to be an ifrit.
Mayana Mayan Spice Bar (spicy dark chocolate ganache, sea salt caramel, tortilla crunch)
Smells sweet and salty. Reminds me of kettle corn. "Too sweet"?
Mostly soft caramel. The milky kind. I'm sort of afraid of the tortilla bits? The spice is all in the chocolate ganache. I'm much more interested in the version of this candy that's *just* a brick of the ganache. That's by far the most interesting part, but it's drowned out by the river of not-the-kind-of-caramel-I-like. Too damn much sugar. Gonna try getting a bite with just the chocolate. It's sort of grainy. The spice takes a while to kick in. It dissolves really fast. If this were a ship it would be sinking. Like someone who set out from an island then *immediately* encountered the sirens and bashed themselves against the rocky shore.
