Hoja Verde 58% + Quinoa

This quinoa chocolate bar was gifted to me at the Chocolate Show by Hoja Verde, as quinoa in chocolate is an interesting and surprising pairing - Jolanda had said many question this bar, so thought it would be great for me to review!

The Nacional cacao beans Hoja Verde work with come from Esmeraldas in North Ecuador. And this is a bean to bar company, with the action happening at origin! This is great, and hopefully will inspire and encourage more to work this way, developing cacao sustainability and the HDI of commodity dependent countries

The chocolate had an aroma of flowers, the archetypal delicacy of Ecuadorian cacao, and suddenly a catch of malt

The texture was a Nestlé Crunch bar, as it felt like crisped rice, and almost reminded me of Cadbury's Double Decker. The chocolate itself was very smooth

The flavour was dark chocolate, nice and sweet, very creamy (not dairy, just creamy) and vanilla. There was no added vanilla, but there was non-GMO soy lecithin

The finish was very chocolate. And what a lovely chocolate this is! It was easy to eat, it was not bitter at all (though it was only 58%) and the texture was great

At the Chocolate Show I was glad to have tried all of Hoja Verde's range, as they had been on my list of chocolate to try since I found them on Cocoa Runners a few months back. One that I enjoyed particularly was their 66% (of which I couldn't resist buying...) and their 50% with cows milk

Hoja Verde is available here from Cocoa Runners! I highly recommend this chocolate