Tadzio Vietnam, Venezuela, Brazil, Philippines

Tadzio, a one-bean; two-ingredient chocolate-making operation, taking inspiration from Japanese minimalism in his presentation, has a growing collection of cocoa beans. When life hands you cocoa beans, you make chocolate, when life hands you chocolate, you relish and write ...

Bén Tre, Vietnam 71%
From 2 batches, the second bettered the first. It was smoky, spiced, Bourbon, pecan nut, honey, maple, later came an occasional sharp acidity, but prior to that, it was fantastic with its flavours

Puerto Cabello, Venezuela 71%
A taste of cocoa husk, real-rustic chocolate, spice and marjoram, green notes and rocks. It had a smooth melt. The aroma hadn't been as inviting, but nothing from the aroma gets picked up in flavour. This one is rather chocolate-y! 

Bahia, Brazil
Rainbow Dust yields to roasted coffee. It melts so cleanly, quickly gone. I go back to this one a week later, it's still that lime and Rainbow Dust sherbet, but now it's followed with hazelnut, then raisin, meanders to Cadbury's Brazilian Darkness. Great flavours, and just really quite interesting. I am very familiar with these Brazilian cocoa beans, but not with this flavour profile. This chocolate had the smoothest, coolest and softest melt of Tadzio's collection

South Cotabato, Philippines 73%
Sweet and warming on the nose. Straight away it's toasty, a high roast - these Philippine beans are very small, so "easy to do" says Tadzio in revealing a possible over-roast. With the roasted profile is rich, dark chocolate. And then slowly develops a curry-like aura with fragrant spices. A really lovely chocolate

Dormouse 60% Brasil with Smoked Sea Salt Milk Chocolate

"60% Brazilian milk chocolate with smoked sea salt" said the Dormouse girls. 

I was elated. 

The dark-milk chocolate was crafted from Brazilian cocoa beans from Fazenda Sempre Firme, muscovado sugar, whole milk, and cocoa butter. Muscovado sugar is a Dormouse trait, as well as their distinctive bar moulds! The cacao is from Akesson's plantation in Brazil

The packaging, from presentation to unwrapping it, gave a feel of artisan and craftsman. It was nice, and felt very close to home

The aroma was pickled and herby (notes of dill), with luscious cream, toffee, dark caramel and cherry

The taste was the salt, creaminess, cocoa, muscovado caramel, wheat, cherry. It was so smooth in texture, with a nicely paced melt. The near finish was tannins of black tea leaves, and black tea itself. The salt was just brilliant 

The Dormouse girls demonstrate the excellence of women in chocolate. This 60% dark milk was very emotive, and I was in awe. It made me look through poetry, writings, pieces of music, just to find something fitting. I like when chocolate does that

Blanxart Brasil 76%

Having exhausted nearly all of Blanxart's dark chocolate origins, it is probably time to call it quits now

The cocoa in this 76% Brasil bar had grown in the Amazon rainforest. The plantation from where the cocoa had grown is located on the Transamazonian road between Belém and Itaituba. Belém in Portugal has the best pastel de natas. Anyway, back to the chocolate - that is not affiliated with Portugal - the ingredients were cacao, sugar, cocoa butter and vanilla, all organic!

The aroma was sweet, and sherbet, and suddenly very fruity! The taste was a chocolate bar with a squeeze of lime. There was a subtle coffee cream which would round the finishing flavour. The melting texture was smooth

My first thoughts upon this chocolate were that it wasn't great. It did have too much added cocoa butter, and it had that undesired tainted feel to it, but really it wasn't that bad. I enjoyed it particularly in a baguette from Gail's Bakery, or dipped in a non-speciality coffee

Damson Café Brasil Notes Coffee Roasters

image Damson 

There are few pairings I love with chocolate, and coffee is one of them. This is Damson's first collaboration bar. Damson worked with Notes Coffee Roasters to compose this Café Brasil. The chocolate tells the story of two London based bean-maestros, taking their Brazilian beans (cocoa and coffee) and creating a Brazilian elixir. Note I was about to say the Brazilian elixir but, after conversing with Damson, I know to save that expression for another time!

The Brazilian cocoa is from Fazenda Camboa, cultivated by Cacao Bahia, and the coffee is from Cachoeirinha, being of the Red Catuai variety, produced by the 'Borges Family'

It was an aroma of coffee, earth, deep forests, biscuits. The taste started bitter but it was quick to melt and there came the sweetness and flavours. Biscuits, coffee, chocolate, acidity and a finishing cocoa. The flavour was rich and long-lasting

The chocolate was so smooth. There were no coffee grounds. Damson wanted a smooth texture with "an even flavour throughout. Something that will release flavour as it melts"

Such a smooth smooth texture. I particularly enjoyed sucking that acidity, I am all about juicy acidity with craft chocolate, it feels like summer. In my notes, I see I was quite excited about this chocolate, and finished the tasting with "BOOM"

Damson Brazil 50% buffalo milk chocolate

Damson crafts this chocolate with organic cocoa beans sourced from Fazenda Camboa, a farm in Brazil in the Mata Atlantica jungle ("the most fertile cacao growing region in Brazil"), and buffalo milk from Laverstoke Farm in the UK

Currently, all Damson's milk chocolate is with milk from the buffalo

The aroma very Damson milk chocolate. That buffalo milk. It has an intriguing characteristic of gherkin. There was saline and acidity mixed with ultra-creaminess and subtle cocoa tones

The taste gifted an array of many flavours, but what stood out was strawberry milkshake blended with chocolate caramel 'shake. This was a rich chocolate, with the texture beautifully smooth and rich too

A new bar from Damson, you can buy it here or visit Damson in London!

Q Chocolate 60% and 65%

Q Chocolate is Brazilian chocolate of the Aquim family, made with cacao from a single Brazilian farm, Fazenda Leolinda. The cacao is said to be "personally selected" by the Aquim family 

I first heard of Q late October, when I met one of the founders, meaning I had to shamefully say that I had never heard of it before 

The 60% had a smoking rubber tyre aroma and taste, with the taste leading to some red berry acidity. The texture was slightly crumbly. Taste-wise I was completely surprised. I didn't so much like the rubber smokiness, but the fruity acidity later was a great counterbalance

^65%

The 65% tasted massively different, it was bubblegum. It reminded me of a Zotter Labooko bar I've had. The snap and bite was brittle and the melt and mouth texture was glossy like bubblegum

Overall, I didn't understand as to why and how these two chocolates were so different, and if there is a logical reason for it I would have loved to have known! (was it intentional? e.g different roasts, conches, then it should be specified on packaging - maybe in the form of flavour profiles)

However, the taste of the 60% had something quite compelling, much like Omnom's Papua New Guinea. At first I don't like it, but with its bright acidity - the contrasting flavours makes me enjoy it

Damson Brazil 70% Fazenda Camboa

For Damson, this chocolate is currently limited edition, but, thinking from their perspective, it is too good not to make more! The cocoa beans are from the Fazenda Camboa farm in Bahia (Eastern Brazil). I was given this bar by Damson due to the ill-tempering, however, apart from a little surface scuff, the temper seems up to Damson-standard

Forest, prune, rich acidity nose, with depths of earth and coffee. It had a wildness to it ...

The taste was dark and dark chocolate, then opened a sweetness and came in mango and an apple's juiciness and lots of acidity

Oh man. From the unroasted bean, gifting me with Marmite brownie, to the actual chocolate, this Brazilian has utterly delighted me! 

Zotter Labooko Milk Brazil 35%

This Labooko Brazil was much lighter in colour compared to the Santo Domingo 40% I tried recently. In this chocolate there too was added salt and vanilla, but, unlike the 40%, there was also soya lecithin and cinnamon (though for some reason cinnamon was not enlisted on the packaging). All ingredients, but the salt, were organic and the Brazilian cocoa mass was Fair for Life certified, being purchased direct from two families in the Amazon. Like all of Zotter's chocolate bars, my two 35g bars came wrapped in gold paper and had a delicate hold

The colour was camel brown, surprising for a milk chocolate. It had a creamy aroma, similar to the Santo Domingo... must be that mountain milk Zotter uses! It was sweet, coconutty, floral with a hinting of spice. The chocolate had a firm snap with a soft touch and a moderately smooth melt

The flavour opened with caramel then up came a wave of cinnamon. It was sweet, creamy and the cinnamon was poetic-like, lingering to the very end of the chocolate. It was such a lovely taste, an Autumn chocolate for sure! I already had a love for cinnamon, having an excessive amount on my porridge daily, but this chocolate reminded me and made me appreciate just how beautiful cinnamon is

A card within every Zotter bar

This chocolate made me feel warm. Whilst tasting, I pictured a hot, creamy beverage with cinnamon dusted on top and a few cinnamon sticks to its side. If this chocolate was a drink, I wouldn't mind having a quick dip of a homemade gingerbread man

I really enjoyed this chocolate and thank Chocablog for it (expect several more thanks as I received quite a bit of chocolate from him!). It can be bought here for £3.95