Dormouse Peru 80%

Cocoa beans from Piura, Peru of the Gran Nativo Blanco type, are such delicate and fine flavour cocoa beans. The beans, from Cacao Tales, are grown by cooperatives in Northern Peru, and they are the most awarded cacao beans grown in Peru, see here for more details.

Dormouse Chocolates, Manchester's first bean to bar chocolate maker, is a ridiculously skilled chocolate maker. So basically, this bar just suggests a real synergistic experience...

An 80% dark chocolate, made with cocoa beans and muscovado sugar only, meaning no added cocoa butter.

The aroma was caramel, lightly acidic, green apples. The taste had perfect acidity, with notes of lime, wheat, ash, rhubarb, and very caramel-rich from the molasses of the muscovado sugar. The flavour was so smooth, as was the texture, which could be explained by the grind and conche time having been 54 hours, all in a 2l capacity grinder, just some fine details for 'chocolate nerds'

This bar really amazed me. Sometimes 80% can be a little too high for me, but it was such an easy going 80%. So much so that I had the whole bar in just a couple of hours. Each piece literally made me say "wow", which I first noticed I was doing when biking in the sun through London 

Dormouse Guatemala 72

Dormouse, micro batch craft chocolate, use Muscovado sugar, this being maybe my favourite sugar, and always they get their hands on really great cacao beans. This bar, as you can see, is a Silver award winning bar. Many people have mentioned the Gatsby-esq pattern of the packaging...

A strong aroma as soon as. A little ferment-y, very bright. Root beer spices. The flavour's richness is molasses and toffee, with acidity like lemons and fruitiness of blueberries. It becomes fairly tannic and oaky in the finish. I also picked up on milkiness and raisins a couple times

Strong aroma, strong flavour. I really love Dormouse craft chocolate 

Dormouse Madagascar 75.6%

Dormouse, small-batch chocolate makers, had won bronze in this year's Academy of Chocolate. This award had been won for their 75.6% Madagascan dark chocolate. The recipe is Madagascan cacao beans, muscovado sugar and cocoa butter

The aroma accentuated different starting notes upon each tasting. Firstly sour, the next was smokey, the next metallic. Overall I would describe it to be sour fruited. Forest and summer fruits, particularly raspberry, macerated in balsamic and apple cider vinegar. There was raisin, treacle and cedar wood too

The taste was roasted, vinegar (high acetic acid, lingers from a crucial process in the fermentation of cacao!), baker's bread. One tasting where the aroma had piquant metallic, it reminded me of a Peruvian small batch I once had, (of RealHonestChocolate...), and I must stress the "piquant", as I enjoyed the chocolate very much by now. The finish was strawberries and general red and black berries with balsamic vinegar, and bamboo leaves

The texture hadn't been as smooth as the 60% dark-milk I recently had of Dormouse's, but then again the refine and conch time was significantly less at 25 hours compared to the 60 hours for the dark-milk

I love the thinness of Dormouse bars. This award-winning Madagascan chocolate was packed of flavour, that brightness and tartness of Madagascan cacao. A chocolate that would have provoked interesting discussion amongst the judges at the Academy of 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

Dormouse Chocolates milk chocolate with toasted pecans & sea salt

To me, Dormouse Chocolates is one of the few bean to bar makers in the UK. Of course, they are much more than that, as they started as chocolatiers. So in truffle and filled chocolate making may lie their priority...

A few days after buying this 39% Ecuadorian milk chocolate, I found it not to be made from the bean by Dormouse! Instead, this bar was the work of a chocolatier, as in turning Belgian couverture chocolate into bars, which to me was such a shame, as I thought I was buying craft chocolate! However, onwards and upwards, I shall forget my faux pas and hopefully this blog will feature a bean-to-Dormouse-bar sometime soon...

Lego-looking chocolate is certainly one I have not seen before. The domes were very shiny, showing Dormouse's knack for tempering

The aroma was sickly-sweet, chocolate-y, Belgian. The taste was very sweet, with then some enjoyable milkiness. Then I had some pecan, and wow, so maple syrup and buttery. I forget how beautiful pecans taste. However it's that hitting sweetness of the chocolate that finishes, sadly

So milk chocolate, proper milk chocolate, is next on the development list for Dormouse! Exciting times. And as the pecan paired with the salt was luscious, I recommend they keep this pairing and stick it on their own bean-to-bar milk chocolate!