Pump Street Bakery Rye Crumb, Milk & Sea Salt

An Academy of Chocolate gold award winner. A dark-milk bean-to-bar chocolate, with added breadcrumbs (wheat, rye, sourdough starter, sea salt) and sea salt, handcrafted in Orford

I made the trip to Orford just to visit Pump Street Bakery. There I was, a Sunday morning, with the sun shining, enjoying their pain au chocolat (made with their own Ecuadorian chocolate) and a Monmouth coffee: picture it

The aroma was delicious. It was very dairy: creamy, lactic; there too was nuttiness and wheat and freshly baked bread. Straight on the tongue it was soft, but once the melt kicked in it's an unexpected rough, gritty texture (the bread crumbs)

The taste was creamy. It lacked sweetness, despite it being a 60% milk chocolate, the rye savouriness dominated. The salt would come through occasionally, striking a sweetness. I loved that, though sometimes a salty taste would linger

I kept thinking 'this tastes like something / what does this remind me of?' Well, I thought maybe Milka Daim® as it had that crunchy texture and because the chocolate had a burnt caramel flavour, but it was also like Ritz/Tuc crackers, if they had been crushed and melted in chocolate!

The finish was somewhat savoury/wheaty, almost bitter with mild chocolate notes

I understand why this chocolate received a lot of attention. Pump Street Bakery are fine bakers, and so it's great to see them being so hands on with chocolate too. This particular bar had its cocoa sourced from Hacienda Limon, Ecuador 

£5.80 for 70g, this pricing is consistent with their other bars apart from the other one I bought: the limited edition Grenada! Stay tuned for my review of that bar. Overall, an enjoyable chocolate: chocolate + flavoursome bread/lightly salted crackers = pretty awesome