The Chocolate Tree Ecuador Milk 55% Arriba

This small batch, craft chocolate, like The Chocolate Tree's purer 84%, was made with cacao beans from the El Ensueño farm in Ecuador. The rich aroma was dairy: cheese and creamy, and honey

The taste, concisely, was bitter, honey and cocoa. It was very tannic, particularly the finish, with dairy, wood (sawdust) and almond. The texture was fairly smooth, more so than the 84% due to the added cocoa butter

Bergamot & Raspberry

The aroma was intensely bergamot with just a whisper of raspberry. The flavour was potent bergamot with the former tannin. Concentration was needed to experience the raspberry, I initially didn't get it at all. There was the bitterness of the Arriba cacao and an astringent feel on the tongue

I'm undecided whether I like bergamot. Its bitter, floral and aromatic flavour is an acquired taste. And in this case it, almost violently, dominated the chocolate. Though when it was delicate it was heavenly. The raspberry would surface and the chocolate tasted so poised

There is something so exquisite about craft chocolate. It's like fine literature. Often too coarse to be a poem, but no less delightful than a beautifully written, irresistible novel. The Chocolate Tree's Bergamot bar (only when delicate) was like Nabokov's prose style: rich, beautiful *and* poetic