Pump Street Bakery Jamaica 75%

Jamaica, my first taste of it in terms of chocolate. The Jamaican cacao had been grown on Bachelor's Hall Estate, a 2015 harvest. Along with the cacao is cane sugar and cocoa butter

It's a chocolate on the darker colour spectrum of 'chocolate'

An aroma raisin, malt loaf (raisin laden), fresh milled wholemeal flour dusted on tabletop, cranberry. The taste, on the money Jamaica! Rum. It started with dried currants and cranberries, raisins, flowing in came the rum - some sugar cane bitterness and overall golden flavour... The underlining base note was garibaldi biscuits. The finish lingered golden rum

Oh, that was so real

Pump Street Bakery Eccles

Opening up the bag, it was the smell of pizza, with fresh basil. This, the Eccles bar, is one of four in the bread and chocolate series from Pump Street Bakery. The other three are Rye, Sourdough, and Bread & Butter

This Eccles chocolate is an Ecuadorian 55% dark chocolate (cacao from Hacienda Limon, 2015 harvest) with Pump Street's renowned eccles cake. The puff pastry eccles cake are made from flour, butter, brown sugar, Voztizza currants, raisins, Armagnac (brandy), nutmeg and cinnamon

The aroma of the chocolate was dried fruit (not so much raisins), brandy, fruitcake, Christmas. The taste was pretty similar. You get the Ecuadorian chocolate, which adds a cocoa intensity. It was fruitcake, with the icing, and dark chocolate chunks inside. It was also puff pastry mince pies. Ya, a whole lot of Christmas going on ... 

Great chocolate. Pump Street are amazing chocolate makers

I picked up this bar in Liberty London as soon as Pump Street Bakery shared on their Instagram this new limited edition bar! They said that Liberty was the only place, other than Pump Street themselves, that stocked it. Each month there will only be 200 bars made. It is £6.25 if bought from Pump Street, or £6.95 from Liberty on Regent Street. The bar also won silver at this years Academy of Chocolate, I do remember tasting it ... 

Pump Street Bakery Grenada 70%

This Grenadian chocolate gets its 'exclusivity' from Pump Street being the sole producer of single estate chocolate from Crayfish Bay estate's cocoa beans

The pouring of the tempered chocolate gets some attention with this particular bar of batch no. 5105, as the back had a border, i.e. it was not flat. The colour, the feel and overall look was very nice, the sheen was like "polished mahogany". I like the seal-bag packaging, as it saves the chocolate's volatile aromas and flavours

The aroma was floral tea leaves, chocolate, smokiness, bamboo (grassy) and blackberry

The taste is one that impresses. In the mix was tea leaves, lots of sweetness, butter, blackberry, nut/wood and acidity. A wave of chocolate then rides the palate, succumbing to wheat. The texture was smooth and buttery

This chocolate has recently won few awards, including gold in the 2015 International Chocolate Awards for 'micro batch'. And overall, an impressive bar - £6.95 seems respectable 

Pump Street Bakery Rye Crumb, Milk & Sea Salt

An Academy of Chocolate gold award winner. A dark-milk bean-to-bar chocolate, with added breadcrumbs (wheat, rye, sourdough starter, sea salt) and sea salt, handcrafted in Orford

I made the trip to Orford just to visit Pump Street Bakery. There I was, a Sunday morning, with the sun shining, enjoying their pain au chocolat (made with their own Ecuadorian chocolate) and a Monmouth coffee: picture it

The aroma was delicious. It was very dairy: creamy, lactic; there too was nuttiness and wheat and freshly baked bread. Straight on the tongue it was soft, but once the melt kicked in it's an unexpected rough, gritty texture (the bread crumbs)

The taste was creamy. It lacked sweetness, despite it being a 60% milk chocolate, the rye savouriness dominated. The salt would come through occasionally, striking a sweetness. I loved that, though sometimes a salty taste would linger

I kept thinking 'this tastes like something / what does this remind me of?' Well, I thought maybe Milka Daim® as it had that crunchy texture and because the chocolate had a burnt caramel flavour, but it was also like Ritz/Tuc crackers, if they had been crushed and melted in chocolate!

The finish was somewhat savoury/wheaty, almost bitter with mild chocolate notes

I understand why this chocolate received a lot of attention. Pump Street Bakery are fine bakers, and so it's great to see them being so hands on with chocolate too. This particular bar had its cocoa sourced from Hacienda Limon, Ecuador 

£5.80 for 70g, this pricing is consistent with their other bars apart from the other one I bought: the limited edition Grenada! Stay tuned for my review of that bar. Overall, an enjoyable chocolate: chocolate + flavoursome bread/lightly salted crackers = pretty awesome