Bar and Cocoa’s Advent Collection
Bar and Cocoa sells a collection of their mini bars, plus a few truffles, along with an Advent calendar. This December, my fiancé and I tasted one chocolate every day until Christmas.
Dec. 1: Tiny Guido G Obino cube
Smells sweet and buttery. Butterscotch? Browned butter? Caramel? A very sweet heavy silky smell.
Hazelnut. This is a super sweet milk chocolate hazelnut truffle. It's in three layers, and the middle layer tastes like hazelnut butter. It melts and dissolves so quickly. I quite like it. It feels like it belongs at a cozy coffee shop with a fireplace, or on a high-piled plate in an academic's study in winter. Indulgent, heavy, sweet, rich.
[I tried another of these on Dec. 16th, so scroll down to compare.]
Dec. 2: Michel Cluizel, Mon Truc Á Moi
Smells sweet, dark, super chocolaty, warm, a little nutty.
Oh man that's a satisfying texture. This is a chocolate candy bar, rather than just chocolate. The package says "milk chocolate bar with cacao nibs, croquant, and hazelnut paste". It's creamy plus nougat plus crunch. Love it. It's a little messy, though, 'cause the cacao nibs keep falling off of the top.
Flavor: Sweet candy but well blended. It's a little hard to focus on the flavor 'cause the texture is a game for my mouth. It reminds me of skipping. Recess, but you sneak off into the woods behind the playground to climb trees and catch toads where the teachers can't see. The cacao nibs on top keep it grounded. Very nice.
Dec. 3: Firetree, Mindanao island, Philipines 73%
Smells sharp like lemon/lime.
Tastes very lime, but it's not overpowering. It's like a flamboyant gay man dancing in a southern city on a hot night. Something really sharp at the back of my throat, like he's wearing stilettos.
It's pretty good, especially if you like exciting fruity chocolate. I'm impressed with how it does the fruit thing while keeping a bit of a smooth buttery foundation to balance.
Dec. 4: Original Beans, Esmeraldas 42%
Smells milkey, like easter chocolate. A little nutty. Too sweet.
A little chalkey. Lots of milk powder. A nice coolness underneath. Creamy. Reminds me of a summertime swimming pool, and nachos at the concession stand. Reminds me of lace doilies in a cottage. It's uncomfortably sweet, but quite smooth given that.
Dec. 5: Marana Craft Chocolate, Cusco, Peru 70%
Smells dark deep chocolaty, like cacao powder for baking.
A little gritty on the tongue. Sharp at first. Quite sour like fermentation. It has a bit of the stomach acid thing. Bit of a chalky texture as I chew. It kind of reminds me of going to math class with a hangover right after the teacher's finished clapping chalk dust out of the erasers. I am not fond of this one.
Dec. 6: Domori, Il Cremino
This is an extremely smooth bonbon type thing with two layers of chocolate and a layer of... peanut butter? Some kind of nut thing. Possibly hazelnut. Definitely sugary candy. Excellent texture. Silky. Reminds me of a little village on a snow covered street in December, with all the shops decorated and kids pressing their noses to the window displays. Warm happy excited decadent uninhibited innocent pleasure. It also reminds me of bookstores with napping cats and cups of coffee steaming.
Dec. 7: Amadei Tuscany, Milk Chocolate With Hazelnuts
Smells sweet and hazelnutty. Very milky.
Melts so fast it's almost sticky. Super sweet. A little grainy. This sure is candy. Smooth milky flavor. Reminds me a little of creme brulee. Something about the thinness and texture of the bar makes it a little hard not to shove the whole thing in my mouth at once. It reminds me of an independent coffee shop and bakery with quiet acoustic music playing. It reminds me of an indulgent treat toward the end of a long day of study and writing. It reminds me of coming up for air after finishing a proof, walking away from the library through the snow and into a warm shop with warm light and warm drinks. It doesn't focus very much on itself. It's a snacking chocolate. It wants to give simple comforting pleasure. It does so with class and charm.
Dec. 8: Belvie Chocolate Maker, Ben Tre 70%
Smells bright, light, happy, almost electric.
Tastes sweet, a little bitter, quiet and light, up and bright. It's a little bit chalkey, but not too much. There's a lot of light gold in this, something just a bit too bright and shimmering to be buttery, like a thin crust of caramelized sugar. It's like tiny spiders traveling by silk on the wind, or dew shining on a leaf in the morning. This is good.
Dec. 9: Domori, Dark Chocolate Ginger
Smells dark and a little spicy. ...A pirate ship that's just landed on shore in the middle of a trip, for some reason?
Tastes at first just like it smells. Then the ginger becomes more prominent. Quite dark. This is exciting. Mysterious adventurous hidden caves and buried treasure. The chocolate is so well balanced. Glinting pieces of eight. Shadows and sea monsters and solving a riddle. A little boy is the hero and there's a bright light shining inside of him through all the darkness.
Dec. 10: Amedei, Toscano Brown Milk Chocolate
Smells like milk chocolate. Creamy milky sweet.
Texture's almost like playdough. Broke against my tongue before I even bit it. Super sweet. Tiny bit grainy. Powdered milk. It reminds me of being excited to go to Walmart as a kid when I was stir crazy at home during winter break. It's relatively inoffensive for a sweet milk chocolate, but I'm not into this one.
Dec. 11: Definite Chocolate, Dominican Republic 70%
Smells super fruity. Dried berries of some kind. Maybe dried cherries. Probably dried cranberries. Rich and dark.
Texture's a little grainy. Doesn't taste quite as fruity as it smells. Oh wait yes it does, just takes a while to kick in. It's like a high sour dried berry taste in the top of my mouth, and the rest is flooded with rich dark bitter sweet. It reminds me of the interior of the San Francisco concert hall, the wide open central space with low lighting, all wrapped toward the orchestra. But there's also something intimate and cozy about it, like listening with audiophile headphones to quiet guitar music recorded right next to the performer. This is a solid classy dark chocolate for chamber music.
Dec. 12: Domori, Tartufo Classico
It's a bonbon.
Smells like hazelnut and chocolate. Very nutty.
Oh there's actually very little chocolate here at all. The outside is unsweetened chocolate powder, and the inside is a sweet crunchy nutty thing. Reminds me of crunching acorn hats underfoot. But it's too sweet. It sort of stabs with the sweetness. I'm not really into it.
Dec. 13: Belvie, Thien Tuy Single Terroir 75%
Smell: Wooooow interesting! A spicy bitter in-your-face smell. Reminds me a little of mud and sweat. How bizarre.
Taste: This is also kind of spicy, like a Tempranillo. It's the second most individualistic chocolate I've tried so far. It's sort of dry and spicy, it reminds me of an eccentric old hermit man who uses... what is that spice I'm thinking of? It's something some people maybe put on their bodies as cologne? Old Spice? No. Oh! Oh god I can't say this. Well, it tastes like Indian people. Um. It tastes a little like the way people smell when they eat a lot of curry. ...Anyway. An old hermit man who cooks stews on his wood stove and has a basement bunker in case of the apocalypse. He makes his own aspirin with willow bark, and usually chases it with moonshine.
Dec. 14: Marana, San Martín, Peru 80%
Smell: A sharpness that's like lime zest. Bright bitter chocolate.
Quite dark. A little grainy. Oh, interesting. A persimmon-like puckering, and a penny-vomit bitter sharpness. Something dry and disintegrating, like chalk or a departing ghost. If this were a boat it would be an enormous flat raft. If it were a human, they'd be pulling a sweet potato from the dry ground to find it shriveled and rotted.
I don't actually dislike this, though. What do I like about it? What I like about it is the solid portentous backdrop. It's like the enormous dark wall of a stormfront. It's unforgiving and far away, but it's also inevitable.
Dec. 15: Amadei, White Chocolate With Pistachios
Smells creamy milky buttery nutty slightly green.
Sweet buttery fatty. It coats my mouth in oil. I'm having trouble getting past "It's white chocolate". If this were a boat, it would be... a... small... house boat, populated by a family of dwarves who go back and forth between a little port town and a series of secret islands where they forage for nuts. They're very cute and they all have little beards with mice and things nesting in them.
Not painfully sweet, slightly crunchy. I'm not really into it, but it's fine.
Dec. 16: Guido G Obin
This is a repeat I think [of the chocolate from Dec. 1], but I'm going to do it again. It's a little hazelnut chocolate truffle sandwich thing.
Smell: Sugary sweet and nutty buttery.
Very nutty, like peanut butter. It's like a super fancy version of a Reeses peanut butter cup. Oh bunch of salt here. It reminds me of Harry Potter. I'd expect to find it in Professor Slughorn's office. Decadent, indulgent, scrumptious.
Dec. 17: Marou, Mekong Kumquat Tien Giang Single Origin Vietnamese Chocolate 68%
Smell: Bizarre. Um. Warm, strangely spicy, kinda poopy. Little sharp. Yellow-green.
Sharp. Bitter. Sour. It's like a rotten lime rind. Oh but actually the high pitched green flavor is neat. It's a little like someone doing acrobatics on a tightrope between two high cliffs. They're kind of sweaty and sour but they've got some cool tricks. Quite a bit of vomit and pennies in this.
This chocolate is ridiculous.
Dec. 18: Domori, Tartufo Classico
(This is a repeat of the chocolate from Dec. 12.)
Smells nutty chocolaty sweet. Smells like a hazelnut candy. Smells like the warm insides of shops at Hogsmeade.
It's so sweet. The outside is just plain powdered chocolate but the inside has so much sugar. Crunchy candy. I have a hard time not rejecting the experience because of how sweet it is. I imagine a kid in a candy shop trying to shove everything in his mouth. This is top shelf stuff, for a candy shop, but it still feels like part of the experience of so many things going by so fast until you're passed out with a stomach ache.
Dec. 19: Marou, Dak Lak So Co La Den, Vietnam 70%
Smell: Iiiii dunnooooo, kinda vomity! Sharp and sour, green and purple.
Sweet at first on the tongue. Something repugnant. My mouth recoils from it like New York City sidewalk trash heaps. It's not overpowering, though. There's other stuff here too. Something smooth and mellow, like a cooing pigeon, or the old blanket inside a homeless man's cardboard shack. There's also some spice, like a mix of cumin and cayenne powder. This chocolate really tells a story. It's the friendship between a New York City pigeon and the homeless man who shares his food every day.
Dec. 20: Definite Chocolate, Dominican Republic Coffee and Sea Salt 65%
Smells: Sharp and fruity. Dried cranberries and cherries. Hight wet energetic playful exciting.
Tastes COMPLETELY different from how it smells, at least at first. Low mellow blunt. Bitter salty. Dark dried grass. Kelp. Old coffee grounds dumped into the garden compost. The personality of this chocolate is dutiful and a little grumpy, like a woman with a small farm who gets up to tend the chickens each morning not so much because she wants to as because raising chickens is just what you do if you have a small farm, and if you raise chickens you have to get up to feed them.
I've never gotten such completely distinct impressions from a chocolate upon smelling it vs tasting it. The fruit never came back. That was wild.
Dec. 21: Michel Cluizel, Pause Insolente Hazelnut and Orange 72%
Smell: Hazelnut. Warm cozy snuggly wrap you up comforting.
Taste: Orange! Oh it's chewy as well as crunchy, neat. It has sort of crystal things in it. The chocolate melts away real fast. Less sweet than I was expecting; in line with the 72%, rather than with my preconceptions of "candy bar chocolate", which is what this look and feels like. Chocolate oranges in Christmas stockings. Early Christmas morning with the sun just about to rise and snow falling outside the windows, the excitement and peaceful solitude of curling up on the couch under the fluffy blanket you brought from your bed to find out what's in your stocking. The chocolate itself has a smooth even quiet quality. It's a sort flavor, a relaxing reflective flavor.
This is really fantastic.
Dec. 22: Original Beans, Esmeraldas 42%
(This is a repeat of the chocolate from Dec. 4.)
Smell: Sweet and milkey. Reminds me of Cadbury, but pinker and more fluid, like a river of soft caramel.
Suppper sweet right away on the tongue. Milk powder. Warm and light. Lol I did not let it melt property, I was so compelled to chew it. I'm seeing cherry blossoms falling in a breeze and landing on the surface of a slow river. Smooth happy light peaceful pleasure. A warm breeze, lying on a grassy hillside in the sun watching puffy white clouds.
I really like this. This might be the first milk chocolate bar to get a thumbs up from me.
Dec. 23: Domori Il Cremino
(This is a repeat of the chocolate from Dec. 6.)
Another little hazelnut sandwich.
Smells warm and nutty. The smell feels like a hug from a big man wearing a soft sweater.
Texture is so smooth and silky. Wow I love it. It's like a hot stone massage by the fireplace on Christmas Eve, with champagne and silk sheets and a tray of snacks beside you. Super comforting.
Dec. 24: Amedei, Toscano Black 70%
Smells warm and exciting.
Sweet, slightly grainy, a little sharp. A lightning bolt in a black sky. Rain. Winter spices. Aerodynamic. The moss growing on the rocks that stick up out of a creek. I'm having a hard time naming this correctly; there's fierce power like a thunderstorm, but the excitement is warm and happy, not white-knuckled or afraid. Ah, I've got it. A thunderbird. This is what it's like to be a thunderbird, made of warmth and light, soaring through a storm.
