Ritual Novo Coffee

Ritual Chocolate are chocolate makers in Utah, USA. For this bar, the cacao had been grown in the Camino Verde farm in Balao, Ecuador, and the coffee is named Anyetsu from Novo coffee roasters, which is a sun-dried Ethiopian coffee.

The aroma was peppercorns (black, red and pink), coffee, caramel, digestive biscuits. The melt starts slow and remains a bit gummy, this is most likely because there is around 33% fat, which is considerably low. There is 10% coffee in this bar, but it is completely ground in so it gives a smooth experience.

The taste had a well balanced acidity with sweetness and bitterness. There was some yeast and earthiness in the background, but the flavours all round up in the finish, with digestive biscuits, Hobnobs and golden syrup. A chocolate of a digestive biscuit-flapjack hybrid... 

J. Cocoa 40% Caramelised Milk Chocolate Nicalizo

This chocolate won Bronze at the Academy of Chocolate 2018. During the tasting sessions, this milk chocolate was a real standout bar for me: firstly the unique method of delivering milk in chocolate (i.e. caramelised) and secondly the intense cocoa flavours (despite being 40%). Both the milk and cocoa yielded big flavours, but the chocolate maker orchestrated them divinely.

An aroma of fresh italian pizza dough, herby, whole milk, caramel. It has a soft bite. The flavour is very caramelised milk, it's a very rich whole milk taste. Huge hit of wholemeal toast. Overall impression is it's a chocolate with an impactful, deep flavour, with slightly nutty notes, nice acidity and a cooling bitterness.