At Target this past week, I picked up a “dark chocolate single origin tasting kit” made by choxie.
As far as I can tell, choxie is a Target-owned brand. Needless to say, I have my doubts that the quality of these chocolates is very high. There are even little write-ups of each flavor, much like wine. “…soothing and earthy, with intense tastes that linger.” “…a chocolate with the lightest notes of neighboring bananas and orchids.”
However, I’m hoping that it is good enough for the differences in taste between the varieties that are included in the sampler, some of which I enjoy very much and would like to investigate frther. This is where you, my fine fellow Dopers, come in.
The box includes 6 individal wafers each, 1 inch x1 inch x 0.2 inch, each of individually foil-wrapped chocolate of the following varieties:
[ul]
[li]49% Venezuelan cacao[/li][li]58% Ghanaian cacao[/li][li]64% Costa Rican cacao[/li][li]64% Peruvian cacao[/li][li]71% Ecuadorian cacao[/li][/ul]
I love a good dark chocolate, but am willing to admit that my pallet is far from trained. I really enjoy the Venezualan and the Ghanaian, but I wonder if I like them because of the unique characteristics of the regional beans, or because they have a higher sugar and fat content? I can at least taste the differences between them, which gives me hope.
So how does one truly explore the world of cacao? It is oh so much more appealling to me than taking up the drinking of Scotch…