To’ak Rain Harvests 2014-2019
2014 81%
This smells sweet, soft, mellow. Chocolaty smooth.
Sharp at first on the tongue, like burned rubber. Bright sharp bitter. Surprisingly harsh. There's depth behind it though. Some kind of wistfulness and sighing. Like wishing for an older time when things were different. Like remembering a pet who died years ago. I can't tell if this is me or the chocolate, but I have this big painful sadness coming up. It's oddly pleasant, like weeping over some uncomplicated loss, a pain that fills you up but moves through you. It's like an old man grieving, or a student watching the sun set while reading a sad poem and understanding poetry for the first time.
2015 80.5%
This smells a little sharp, almost licorishy. There's a strong deep chocolate behind the sharpness, but it still has the lightness and the sweetness of feeling that I've come to associate with To'ak, like a meadow of wildflowers in a forest clearing that no human has ever seen.
It's a little bit sharp and bitter. I feel almost like it's trying to sing. I want to bathe in it. If this were a dancer, it would be an experienced lead who's danced just a single style for decades and has mastered his particular expression of the art. His motions are precise and perfect with no ambiguity but no rigidity either, and he's constantly moved only by the song. He has very little playfulness and he does not deviate from his preferred approach for the sake of his follow, but nobody wants him to change. He wears just a single dab of a florid cologne.
2018 74%
Oh man this one's scent is utterly unique and unforgettable. I laughed out loud when I sniffed it. This is among the first chocolates I tasted, and smelling it is like listening to a song you haven't heard since the summer when you fell in love. It smells happy, florid, sweet, relaxed. It smells like quiet joy and playfulness and contentment. It smells like spring.
It's slightly grainer than I remember, though still very smooth. It reminds me of dreaming. And god those flowers, I've never tasted a chocolate with a more full and balanced floral nose. It's like napping by a riverbank beneath a tree covered in honeysuckle vines. If I believed in gods and made sacrifices to appease them, I might melt this chocolate and pour it into the cupped hands of a sacred statue. If one came to me in my dreams as a result, it would be in the form of a curly-haired child reminding me that joy comes from loving what's in front of you, and I'd wake to find petals in my sheets.
2019 75%
Smells warm and smooth. Sunny but not dry, like a sparkling stream. A little bit of sharpness. It reminds me of bicycles.
This has... I was going to say it has a hint of burnt rubber, but that flavor quickly deepend into something with a whole lot more character, like someone taking off a mask. It's surprisingly round and full for such a light and happy flavor. This is another chocolate that's all ages at once. A fairy king stepping in and out of the mortal world to nudge the timeline toward the beautiful and strange. Purple and indigo streamers wafting in four dimensions. An almost psychedelic chocolate. It makes me feel excitement and aliveness that's as much intellectual as embodied. If I wanted to SUMMON a deity, I think this is the chocolate I would choose.
Astounding. A masterpiece.
