Purchero
Unocace Ecuador Coffee 70%
Smell: Ooh, smells sharp bitter coffee. Bright coffee. Like licking an espresso bean. A little earthy.
Oh Duncan's gonna hate this. Very sharp right off the bat, but in a coffee way, not a fruit way. Little gritty. Chalky. Ghostly dusty. Coffee spilled on dusty old books. Chalk erasers in the basement of a genealogy research library. The dust heavily coats my tongue. It's got this lethargic muted thing.
Not my favorite.
Kokoa Kamili Tanzania 84%
Smell: Mmm that smells sweet and fruity. Light bouncy happy. Christopher Robin skipping beside Tigger.
Ooo some flowers in there. Nice. This chocolate has dynamics. There's a high lime at the picalo top, oboe weaving through the middle, and the whisper of a french horn in the cool flower river at the base. Something's a little odd about the midrange voices, though. It reminds me of local anesthetic. It feels like something has been twisted or turned inside out, lost its orientation. What is going on here? It's hard to hear the middle properly. The more I bring it into focus, the more I get something bitter and basic (as in the opposite of acidic). This chocolate is like an orphan who lived on the streets as a child, but has grown up now and doesn't really have a notion of direction or stability. He tries to enjoy his life through splashes of hedonism, and in his heart there are the makings of a poet or a painter, but it doesn't ever occur to him that he might work toward something in particular, that life can move forward toward something, and he's just sort of bitter and jaded.
El Castillero Nicaragua 70%
Smell: Ahhhhhh heavenly. Florid. Light pink petals wafting back and forth in the breeze as they fall from a fruit tree. Oh it's just such a serene peaceful scent. It fills me with an excited joy that bubbles up and bursts into quiet contentment. It's like bathing in liquid sunlight.
Tastes a lot like it smells! On a cool evening, stepping with bare feet onto a big stone that's still warm from the daylight. A little chalky, but it's not overwhelming. A carpet of petals so thick you can't tell until you step in that they're floating on the surface of a natural hot spring. The way I felt playing my guitar on the back porch of my cabin in North Carolina.
It's not especially complex, but its simple message has subtlety and lightness. I'd prefer it a little less sweet.
