In depth chocolate reviews #1 - Dick Taylor Vanuatu
This bean-to-bar chocolate is made by Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate from Eureka, CA.
This bar is 78% cocoa, made with beans grown in Vanuatu, a relatively rare origin, only recently attracting the attention of specialty chocolate makers.
This is definitely an earthy bar, not much fruit to be found. It has a noticeable but light acidity which helps lift it, and little to no bitterness. I find the “tobacco” note listed to be fairly accurate, the flavor of the chocolate does remind me of some high-end cigars, particularly corojos. It reminds me of that slightly sour and fermented tobacco smell. I also get some rich nuttiness (maybe macadamia?), and a hint of a fresh soil adjacent note. It’s very unique, and definitely tasty.
This is my first bar from Dick Taylor, and I was very excited to see why people recommend this company so highly. I can definitely understand why, this is obviously a very high quality bar.
If I were being nitpicky, I’d say the texture could be a bit smoother and snappier (gold standard texture-wise for me is Chocolat Bonnat), however it seems there’s no added cocoa butter in this bar, so I’m not sure how much smoother/snappier it could be (I only recently started getting into craft chocolate, and I have a lot to learn). From what I understand, European chocolate tends to be higher in cocoa butter.
For an origin as unique as this, I’m actually glad they kept the origin completely pure by not adding any extra cocoa butter. I’ll make that texture-tradeoff in this case.