Three Random Bars From Choquiero Chocolate In Nevada City
Amano: Cardamom Black Pepper 60%
Smells a florid and a little bit spicy. My brain says it smells like "Amano chocolate" so I guess I've eaten a fair amount of this brand now. I think it specifically smells like Dos Rios.
Sweet and light on the tongue at first. I'm not chewing yet and little bits of gritty stuff are melting out of the chocolate. They seem like grains of sugar. It's crunchy as I chew. A little chalkey. I'm really very distracted by the texture, and also by the sweetness. If this were a body of water, it would be a puddle. It's like splashing in a puddle with great big galoshes. There's really a lot of lavender flower and maybe orange. It's perhaps a bit warmer than Dos Rios by itself. The cardamom is very light. I'm not sure I'm finding it. Mostly it tastes to me like a too sweet version of Dos Rios with sugar granules in it.
Cacaosuyo: Cozco, Peru 80%
Smells dark, chocolaty, a little spicy. Bitter like the last leg of a road trip at night.
Acerbic. Makes my mouth pucker a little like a persimmon. This is a funky earthy chocolate. It reminds me of mushrooms, or the rot under a log. That sounds bad but I actually like it. It's extremely individualistic, like an old woman who renounces society and goes to live in a hut in the middle of the jungle brewing potions out of jaguar claws. This is one of the most interesting chocolates I've had. It does not give two fucks about what I expect chocolate to taste like. It just does its own thing, which is to cure hives with magic and powdered centipedes, and it does it quite well.
Fossa: Duck Shit Dancong
Note: "Duck shit" is apparently the name of a tea. It's "Ya Shi Xiang" in chinese. Yes the name is 100% of why I chose this bar.
Smells musty malty matcha-y.
Super duper malted milky and oolong-y. Very milky texture as well. Extremely strong tea flavor. Lots of powdered milk. Leaves a strong bitter aftertaste like oolong. This chocolate is a friendship between a 200-year-old koi fish and a young toad. The toad wants to know how to live forever. The fish is trying to teach him how to not get eaten within the next few hours.
