Ritual 75%
Soconusco, Mexico
Smells alive. Bright like tree frogs hopping. Warm like cinnamon and cardamom. Toasted marshmallows.
On the tongue it's WAY fruity. Lemon, lime, and dried cranberries. So sour. This is one of the fruitiest chocolates I've ever tasted. What else is going on? A children's choir singing in the park. The burbling rush of a creek. Picnics in the woods. This is a friendly, excited, young kind of chocolate. It is the most adventurous kind of boy scout.
Bejofo Estate, Madagascar
Mmmmm a spicy excited adventurous smell. And cherries.
This one is also super fruity. It's not as high, though. More of a midrange fruit, like dried cherries, some apricots, maybe even all the way down to prunes toward the back of the mouth. Its personality is... gosh, I'm getting such a precise answer to that. It's a teenage boy with dark hair and eyeliner who's generally calm and polite so people will overlook him, but he leads a secret life on the weekends where he goes to the local prison and writes poetry with the inmates. There's a hidden rebellious fire that is only good but wouldn't really be understood if it were seen with a casual glance.
Camino Verde, Ecuador
Smells like buttery flowers! Also some caramel and almonds.
Sweet on the tongue right away. Oh, interesting, tastes "less processed" than most chocolate. More of the raw cacao bean flavors are here; the hot asphalt thing, the astringent bitterness. It's not overwhelming, though. It feels honest. Like bathing in a stream. Little sour. I feel sort of disoriented by this chocolate. The flowers are very subtle, and there's a bit of fruit but not much. I don't know if it hasn't figured itself out, or if it's just me who doesn't get it yet. It reminds me a bit of a fireside. It reminds me of camps near the peaks of mountains. I get some wild black raspberry on the tip of my tongue. Foraging for berries to make a pie. If this were a boat it would be a canoe.
Maya Mountain Cacao, Belize
Smells sweet like honey, or pineapple salsa.
Oh gosh, "pineapple" was right. It's also got jasmine flowers. Gardenia? No, it's honeysuckle. For sure, this is honeysuckle and pineapple. Wow it's unique and really good. It's like it's skipping and twirling in an iridescent poodle skirt. I'm having trouble handling how intensely alive this chocolate is. I've never had anything like this. It's like black light roller skating through the jungle canopy. It's like my engagement ring. It's not super duper deep or complex, but the few notes are just so precisely chosen, like a haiku, or a key. This is astonishing. Ray Lynch wrote this chocolate. I imagine it pairs well with LSD.
This is going on my list of favorites.
Ritual is a lot like Videri.
