Bar of the Week: Coppeneur's Habanero and Lavender

Maybe you're just now recovering from sampling the "Do Not Eat This Chocolate" bar two weeks ago, or perhaps your hunger for spicy chocolate is still raging.  Either way, consider stopping in for a taste of the Habanero and Lavender inclusion bar from German chocolate maker, Coppeneur. 

The base of this bar is a 72% dark chocolate made with single-origin Trinitario beans from Trinidad.  The interplay of the ingredients gives it an amazing aroma, the earthiness of the chocolate mingling with the warmth of the peppers and the cool, soothing scent of lavender.  And the taste?  More levels than a Ballard condo!  The chocolate itself is complex and has time to unfold before the lavender blooms and, finally, fades into the habanero kick.

Intrigued?  Come by on Saturday, March 27th, to try Coppeneur's Habanero and Lavender.

Bar of the Week: Olive and Sinclair's 75% Dark

We're very excited to introduce you to Olive and Sinclair, a new bean-to-bar maker based in Nashville, TN.  A video on their blog gives a great idea of both the hard work and the magic that O&S's two young chocolate-makers put into their "Southern Artisan" chocolate.  Stone-grinding leaves their products with an appealingly rustic texture, while brown sugar lends a deep, lingering sweetness.

Their 75% bar is what they call "dual origin"--that is, it combines from Ghana and the Dominican Republic.  Join us on Saturday, March 20th, for a taste of Olive and Sinclair's 75%!

Bar of the Week: Lillie Belle's "Do Not Eat This Chocolate" Bar

The new bar from Oregon chocolatier Lille Belle Farms starts out as a normal-enough blend of organic milk and dark chocolates.  Then come the spices.  These include aji amarillos, arbole, and the legendary ghost chili--all administered with a heavy hand.  The final product has more than enough attitude to justify the "death metal" wrapper.

From the label:  "There is no reason for this bar to exist except that there is a large population of people who enjoy the searing heat of chile's in their chocolate and like it so over the top that they hurt.  Fine.  We can do that."

This is not a chocolate for delicate palates or ambivalent opinions.  Reactions so far have ranged from "wow!" to "ow!".  What will you think?  Join us on Saturday for a sample of Lillie Belle's "Do Not Eat This Chocolate" Bar.  We'll have water handy.

Bar of the Week: Patric's Rio Caribe Superior

The title of this post should really be "Bar of the Patric Week":  all week long we'll be celebrating and sampling chocolates from Patric, the Missouri-based maker of bean-to-bar artisinal chocolate.  Owner Alan McClure produces on a micro-batch basis, only 50 carefully controlled pounds at a time. Many of our customers already know and love his range of single-origin bars of fruity Madagascar cacao.

Our Saturday sampling will highlight Patric's Rio Caribe Superior, a 70% dark chocolate made with single-estate cacao from Venezuela's Paria Peninsula. The succinct list of ingredients (cocoa beans and cane sugar) allows the chocolate's inherent flavor to shine.  Expect notes of cream, flowers, roasted nuts, and coffee.

Bar of the Week: Amano's Dos Rios

From his base in the mountains outside Salt Lake City, Art Pollard of Amano Artisan Chocolate seeks out the cacao world's most eccentric and flamboyant beans, transforming them into chocolate that showcases their strong personalities. 

Amano's new Dos Rios bar is the product of a chance encounter and behind-the-scenes matchmaking.  A friend in the industry came across a uniquely flavorful cacao while traveling in the Dominican Republic and immediately alerted Pollard, who adjusted his processing techniques to maximize the cacao's inherent flavors.  The result is a strongly perfumed 70% chocolate with pronounced notes of bergamot, rose, and orange blossom, and a long floral finish.  It's hard to believe that none of these flavors were added! 

Dos Rios is probably unlike anything you've tasted before.  Stop by for a sample of this exciting new chocolate on Saturday, February 27th.

Bar of the Week: Pralus Colombie

A 75% dark chocolate of single-origin Trinitario beans, Pralus' Colombie combines the nutty and coffee notes common to the region's chocolates with Pralus' typical heavy roast and creamy texture.  Seventypercent.com praises the bar's complex interplay of fruit and cream, calling it "definitely one of the must-tries of the Pralus line".  If you'd like to try Pralus' Colombie, be sure to stop by on Saturday, February 13th for a sample.

Bar of the Week: Coppeneur's Ocumare

A 72% dark chocolate of Venezuelan criollo beans from Coppeneur, a relatively new and somewhat controversial German maker.  While the bar was reformulated after an earlier version proved unpopular, Ocumare continues to generate strongly diverging opinions among reviewers.  Rants note its marked acidity; raves hail its complex aroma, substantial texture, and buttery, fruity, and flowery notes 

This is exactly the kind of chocolate that sampling events were made for!  Join us on Saturday, February 6 for a taste of Coppeneur's Ocumare--and let us know which side of the debate you find yourself on.