This bar is made using Mexican cocoa beans, which Mucho source from the Chiapas and Tobasco regions of Mexico . Once harvested these cocoa beans are shipped to Mexico City where Ana and the Mucho company turn them into one of their Mexican chocolate bars.
I’ve tried some regional cocoa from around Mexico, but I’ve always had the feeling that much like Colombia or Peru, the cocoa has the potential to be quite variable over short distances due to their heritage and the biodiverse environment. Most of the cocoa I’ve tried so far has been from around the Chiapas region or the Tobasco region of Mexico, with both exhibiting fairly different qualities. The cocoa from Chiapas tends to exhibit refined and elegant sunny flavours of citrus and florals with tea like qualities, owing to some of its criollo characteristics, whereas the cocoa from the Tobasco region tends to exhibit dried fruit and smokey tobacco and wood notes, more in line with the chillies produced in that region. Mucho source their cocoa direct from farmers in both the Chiapas and Tobasco regions, so I’d expect most of their bars to fall into one of the two categories, but I’m interested to see if there’s some variability between farms in the regions. Opening the packaging I’m presented with a long thin slab with an ornate cocoa pod design mould. Breaking off a piece reveals bright and vibrant sweet aromas of strawberry angel delight and candy floss with some macadamia nut in the finish. Placing a piece in my mouth the chocolate is firm and hard slowly turning to thick caramel textures in the mouth and unrefined molasses. To taste this bar opens up with some of its softer fruit flavours, tayeberry or macerated strawberries that taste soft and with very little acidity, from here the bar becomes more spicy, more roasted and considerably darker. Flavours of Jamaica cake creep in accompanied by dark caramels, muscovado and treacle toffee notes that are darkly sweet. There’s a lingering fruity top note that carries through to provide some contrast, best described as prune that allows for a little more nuance. This is a bar that’s main feature is its dark developed sweetness, bringing you in on a lighter softer beginning. One for those who like the darker side of sugar and like roasted flavours without having the bitterness often associated with them. Best enjoyed with honey toasted wheat, puffed rice, sparkenhoe red Leicester, aged dessert wine or spiced aged rum.
Ingredients: Cacao, sugar, cocoa butter
Appearance 8.5/10
Colour: Darker brown
Texture: Smooth weathered sandstone, light sandiness
Mould: Ornate cocoa pod slab
Snap: Crisp
Temp/Shine: Glossy matte
Aroma 9/10
Intensity(0-10): 8
Notes: Strawberry angle delight, candy floss, macadamia
Quality: Sweet, bright, vibrant
Melt/Mouthfeel 9/10
Length: Long
Evenness: Even
Texture: Caramel, molasses
Quality: Firm, hard, rich
Acidity 9/10
Intensity(0-10): 2
Notes: Tayeberry, macerated strawberries
Quality: Soft, balanced, rounded
Sweetness 9/10
Intensity(0-10): 8
Notes: Dark caramel, dark muscovado, treacle toffee
Quality: Developed, dark, roasted
Flavour 9/10
Intensity(0-10): 8
Type: Sweet
Notes: Tayeberry, Jamaica cake, roasted cocoa, prune, dark caramel, treacle toffee
Quality: Soft, spiced, roasted, dark
Length 8.5/10
Flavours are a little short, getting longest in the middle making slow rounds on peaks of sweet fruit notes
Finish 8.5/10
Notes: Treacle toffee
Quality: Flavours fall away towards the end leaving the bar to move towards it’s darker backbone of treacle toffee flavour that lingers after the finish
Balance 8.5/10
Bar has complementary profile and a firm roasted structure that provides anchoring and stability encouraging a firm balance
Overall 9/10
Bar has some depth and some dimension, complexities are balanced and structure is consistent, expression feels honest, but a bit short with processing encouraging development through roast
Mucho’s Tasting Notes:
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