'Brooklyn based Mast Brothers' is, by far, the coolest wording attached to a chocolate maker, or any business for that matter. The cacao in this chocolate was organically farmed, grown under the canopy of banana and citrus trees
The packaging was charming. The colours, patterns, the front sticker stuck on unevenly, the sticker on the back mentioning "craft chocolate", just charming. Using a knife, I ripped open the paper wrapping. A sweet smell touched my nose, though my eyes were dissatisfied at the sight of bloom
Imagine a bowl of exotic fruits, each sliced in half, their juicy insides catching the sunlight, and then chocolate melting upon it all. That was the aroma. But predominately it gave way to more raisin, prune and sour cherry, red wine, molasses, toast, strawberry, and once a rich creamy cheese. It was immensely balanced
The flavour was tannin, red wine, spice, raisin, unripe banana, and bitter. It was classic and not too complex
The texture wasn't smooth and was fairly dry. Explanations for this would be that there was no added cocoa butter, and the conching/refining process not being as experienced as, for example, Domori, due to Mast Brothers being small batch, craft chocolatiers. The snapping and chewing felt brittle, but the brittleness was, I think, worsened as it had bloomed. The chocolate was slow to initiate melt and therefore took a while to experience the flavours
Mast Brothers' Dominican Republic was favourably fruity. There were several aspects I didn't like too much, such as the tannin and astringency, and the dry, slow melting texture. But, as a bean-to-bar, craft, single origin, purer chocolate, it was pretty wicked, and at its climax it had the most beautiful, developed, red flavour
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