Tuesday 7 July 2015

Szántó Tibor Santo Domingo

Szántó Tibor is a Hungarian bean-to-bar maker. I enjoyed reading Tibor's story on how he got into the chocolate making craft. For this bar, the cocoa beans are from the San Cristobal region of Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) and mixed with unrefined cane sugar and cocoa butter

I bought this bar in Endorfine (a chocolate shop in Budapest that I highly recommend - lots of quality bars, i.e. Amedei, Menakao, Marou etc!). Prior to buying, the young lady allowed me to try Szántó Tibor. Starting with the Bén Tre (Vietnam), I then asked about the Dominican one, they had similarities, but the flavour the Dominican evoked meant I just had to chose it over the Vietnamese
The nose was chocolate, tropical fruits and metallic

The taste was LEGIT chocolate covered plums (prunes), Wawel Sliwka W Czekoladzie, a Polish delicacy that I loved when I was little. There was mango, smoked hints, cherry and it was very sweet (because of the larger sugar particles?)

The texture was 'rough' with sugar, but there were also the tiny cocoa bean husks being left behind on the tongue. Some (I know one guy for sure) would disapprove of this coarse ground. Admittedly I didn't love it, but I think the nostalgic flavour dominated the texture. Plus, the sugared feel added to the effect of it being dried fruit coated in chocolate ... 

Overall, this was a different chocolate experience. It seemed less sacrosanct, but tasted divine. The way to eat was to chew

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