Mazur Single Origin Organic Chocolates

The minute I learned that Mazur’s calls their business a café and chocolate lab I was intrigued. After all, isn’t a chocolate laboratory full of creative potential and delicious possibilities?

Mazur’s website shows a beautiful, bustling coffee shop replete with happy staff and customers. There’s even a guitarist to make it more enticing. While I can’t beam myself there I was able to sample their chocolate.

All the bars came in beautifully designed artistic cardboard envelopes that re-closed easily. An inner gold foil wrapper was heavy enough to make my chocolate experience neat and contained. The bar’s design breaks easily into a multiplicity of triangular pieces with a central Mazur logo.

Before I share my sybaritic experience with these delights, I wanted to clarify something. Even though I spent a good portion of my life with art and artists, including a summer internship at the Guggenheim and studying art history in college for two years, I believe that when it comes to personal taste all the knowledge and beautiful adjectives in the world are irrelevant. I know that sounds extreme, especially from someone who loves words and knowledge. What I mean is that taste is idiosyncratic. You can study northern Renaissance art until you’re blue in the face, but if it doesn’t speak to you, you might appreciate it intellectually yet find it leaves you cold. Similarly, I can try to parse out the various flavors that emerge for me when I taste chocolate, and you might have a completely different experience. While my major focus is on the gustatory joy of chocolate, as well as its mighty phytochemical benefits for my physical and mental health, I also care about attractive packaging and user-friendly design, where bars break into manageable pieces. You may have other priorities. I simply love experiencing and sharing new chocolate creations with my readers. Your experiences will invariably be different from mine.

On to this beautiful, delicious flight of organic bars….

72% Madagascar is a creamy bar with lucious rounded flavors creating a balanced taste that quells any chocolate craving.

72% Ecuador has a fresh, fruity flavor and lovely, crisp temper. 

72% Belize boasts a rich, creamy texture. It’s a great choice for someone embarking on a voyage to darker bars (over 70%) as it’s not going to overwhelm them with earthy or acidic notes that might turn them off to what they could erroneously consider “bitter chocolate.”

72% Dominican Republic is another silkily well-tempered love note with just a touch of acidity to punch up a fairly gentle flavor profile of light fruit and a hint of chestnut.

72% Ghana captivates with its depth of flavor. A bit earthy, but still elegant and full of fruity sweetness.

72% Guatemala has all the richness of the other bars with dark plummy flavors and a hint of terroir to make the experience more enticingly complex. If I had to pick a favorite, that was it.

I also sampled a 55% Dark Milk from Madagascar. This tasted like a classic milk chocolate with multiple layers of richness. A great choice for those who love milk chocolate and are curious to try its darker varieties.

Mazur Chocolates sources all their single origin beans ethically. In fact, one of their dreams is to lift cacao farmers in Belize out of poverty by building a factory on site. In this day and age, when we know better, we can do better. Buying ethically sourced chocolate from single origin small farms is one way to improve living conditions for people who currently don’t even have running water. 

You can buy Mazur chocolate bars here: https://mazurchocolates.com

Two great offerings from Askinosie: Powerhouse Blend with Nibs & Chocolate Covered Whiskey-Soaked Cocoa Nibs

The first thing I noticed when tasting Askinosie’s Chocolate Covered Whiskey-Soaked Cocoa Nibs and their 65% Powerhouse Blend bar with nibs was how different treatment of the same ingredient can create radically different experiences.

The chocolate covered nibs come in a 200g attractive container, perfect for gift giving. If you’ve tried chocolate with nibs and didn’t like the uber-crunch, you will adore these. The subtle whiskey flavor is gently boosted with the addition of black pepper is and the nibs are almost chewy rather than brittle. Askinosie’s Mababu Trinitario beans are among my favorites. (Try their 72% plain dark bar.)

The 65% Powerhouse Blend bar seduced me. The two single origins are: Mamabu (Trinitario) and the revered Amazonia (Arriba Nacional). To make this bar even more appealing, I learned the the beans come from two women-led origins.

The bar is visually stunning as the underside is coated with toasted nibs, while the top has Askinosie’s bas-relief lettering, each letter in its own square of chocolate. My first impression was a mixture of perfect crunchiness, creamy chocolate, balanced sweetness, and notes of banana. A satisfying, light, lingering finish sealed the deal. Full of fiber, low in sugar (8g per 30g portion), and vegan, this is the ideal way to tweak your mood enhancing endocannabinoid brain chemistry without THC.

You can find Askinosie’s wide variety of bars and treats here: https://askinosie.com/collections/all-our-craft-chocolate-offerings

Askinosie’s Build Your Own Chocolate Tasting Kit

Askinosie Chocolate has a new build your own chocolate tasting kit, and if you act quickly you can get 10% off. Not enough incentive? Even though it’s hot as blazes in many parts of America these days, they will include two day free shipping with a minimum purchase of $55.

Most of their chocolate are included. Anything from their award winning 62% dark milk to their 88% super dark bar. The options vary widely, and any four bars would create a captivating experience.

Just imagine, it’s a rainy day on a family vacation camping in the woods. No nearby movie theater, no Wi-Fi, and you’ve played as much Fish as you can stand. I guarantee if you pull out your Askinosie tasting kit, everybody will be mesmerized, intrigued, and engaged. Of course, I am assuming your children are adventurous eaters.

In my experience, dark chocolate stays fresh well beyond its best by date. With that in mind, you might want to take advantage of the free shipping and 10% off offer and buy a few tasting boxes to save for early Christmas gifts. The trick, of course, will be not tucking into them yourself before the holiday.

The four full-size bar kit comes with a tasting wheel and flavor placemat.

https://askinosie.com

New single origin Peruvian bars from Fruition Chocolate Works

If you care about beauty, check out the four new Peruvian bars from Fruition Chocolate Works. The packaging is exquisite, whether you buy one bar or the giftable full flight of four. Not only are the designs unique, cheerful, and fun, the re-closable envelope, with its inner cellophane wrapper, assures you a neat eating experience.

There are three 73% dark bars and one 68% dark milk. Each has a noticeably different flavor profile from its sibling. If you balk at anything over 70% this is a perfect time to stretch your legs. The addition of cocoa butter makes the texture of the 73% bars smooth and silky.

These Peruvian 73% single origin offerings are a refined experience meant to be savored. The nuances in their layers of flavor continue to intrigue and delight me. That requires I fully focus on each, so I can be both a mindful would-be Buddhist and a chocophile.

Fruition’s Maranon dark 73% farmed in Cajamarca, Peru has the fudgiest texture which, combined with its lush dark fruit notes, beautifully highlights these rare National beans.

Chuncho 73% from Cuzco, Peru is a bright fruity bar with a velvety texture. If you know someone who eschews dark chocolate, this would be a great introduction as it’s mellow and gentle on the palate.

Piura Blanco 73% is made from cacao farmed in northern Peru. These criollo beans are lighter in color than others and produce a subtle, elegant bar with a hint of acidity for balance. It has a slightly drier finish than the Maranon and Chuncho.

The Origins of Peru dark milk bar 68% blends all three of the previous beans with an extra touch of creaminess. It captures the slightly dry finish of the Piura Blanco, a little edge from the Chuncho, and is rounded out with dark fruit from the Maranon.

All four bars make for a unique tasting flight, treat for yourself, or memorable gift.

You can find them at: fruitionchocolateworks.com

New from Crow & Moss: Apple & Honey Oat Crumble

As an introvert, my idea of fun, as I sink into what is now euphemistically called my third age, can be pretty low key. So when I received Mike Davies’ new Apple & Honey Oat Crumble chocolate bar from his company, Crow & Moss, I immediately smiled with anticipation. From the title alone, I knew it would be fun and delicious.

The bar, made with a base of their fabulous Dominican Republic Zorzal chocolate mixed with oat milk, has a layer of crumbly apple, oat granola on its underside. It would be excellent at breakfast with a steaming cup of coffee, tea, or chai, and equally at home as an afternoon snack, or dessert.

If you prefer your chocolate on the sweeter side and milky, this will sate your cravings.

Mike’s bars are always perfectly tempered to a glossy, crisp, audible snap, and this one is no exception. The layer of a slightly sweet apple oat crumble added an intriguing texture and flavor. Even though it’s June, it felt like a gustatory September.

If extra adornment of chocolate is not your thing, I highly recommend you sample Mike’s Zorzal and Wampusirpi bars. If you’re feeling extra adventurous, his Vanilla Smoke bar is one of the most crave worthy bars on the planet.

In this day and age, as we watch companies flagrantly increase their prices with abandon, I’m happy to report Mike offers free shipping with any purchase over $35. (If you fall in love with a particular bar you can also buy a case wholesale.) Find the full line here: http://www.crowandmoss.com.

New! Vegan Mylk and Cookie Chocolate Bars from Crow & Moss

The coming holidays are always a good excuse to indulge chocolate cravings, and what better way than with two new vegan offerings from Crow & Moss?

Matt Davies, founder and chief chocolatier, was originally a baker. So creating chocolate bars with cookie inclusions came naturally to him. I love the way he recently spoke about how historically chocolate has been added to baked goods, and his desire to add baked goods to chocolate.

I don’t know about you, but I always associate cookies and cakes with delicious indulgence. To me, an indulgence is something that so thoroughly absorbs my senses that it takes me away from the Sturm und Drang of the day. I have a special affinity for Matt’s Wampusirpi, Vanilla Smoke, and Zorzal dark bars. These new coconut mylk bars are vastly different, but equally satisfying. The most outstanding features they have in common is an ultra creamy texture punctuated with bits of cookie.

The 40% Coconut Macaroon Cookie bar has macaroon cookie and toasted coconut on its underside.  The combination of crunch and velvety, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate is perfect as a satisfying dessert all by itself. The bar’s lovely richness comes from coconut milk.

The 40% Ginger Snap Cookie bar has a slightly more delicate crunch and a spicy complexity from ginger, cinnamon, and cloves. This trio of warming, enticing spices compliments the richness of the chocolate. Here, the vegan chocolate base is enhanced with oat milk.

It’s not easy creating a great dairy free milk chocolate, but Matt has done it. That said, you certainly don’t need to be vegan to love these new bars.

You can find them, and a cornucopia of other delicious offerings, at: http://www.crowandmoss.com. They offer free shipping with a reasonable minimum purchase.

Wildwood Chocolate

Whether you’re a child or an adult, almost everyone walking the earth knows life can be disappointing. So when we buy chocolate, we want a reliably wonderful experience. I want to be satisfied, delighted, and even, when in the right mood, happily surprised. Thankfully, there are some incredible chocolate companies producing chocolate I can depend on to consistently bring me joy.

Wildwood Chocolate offers a line of classic and innovative bars that will delight all your senses. The bars are artistic, well tempered, and delicious.

I sampled three from their cornucopia of offerings. Each one was completely different from its sibling in appearance, texture, and flavor.

One of the most challenging tasks for any chocolatier is combining chocolate and caramel. In my experience, either the chocolate is too sweet, the caramel is too sweet, the caramel is too runny and messy, the caramel is too hard and chewy, or both the caramel and chocolate are too sweet. Somehow, and I honestly consider this a minor miracle, Steven Lawrence, co-founder and chocolatier at Wildwood Chocolate has been able to create the most amazing caramel filled chocolate bar (a generous 3.53 ounces). Not only is it beautiful, but you can actually break off a piece and not create a mess. The 70% chocolate’s sweetness is perfectly balanced, its temper snappy and crisp, while the thin layer of caramel filling is utter perfection. The texture is neither too soft nor too thick, it stays put, and yet still has that uber-appealing slight chewiness.

The Orange Confit and Cherries bar is both beautiful and perfectly executed. The jeweled fruit tastes freshly dried and preserved, a chewy foil to the chocolate’s crispness. Incidentally, the bar is 3.17 ounces. Heftier than most high end offerings.

The Marcona Almond studded bar (3.17 ounces) has artfully arranged almonds, all in equally pristine condition, happily giving up their buttery, crispness to my enjoyment.

If you love if you’re a visual person who appreciates aesthetics, you will fall in love with the bas-relief designs on these bars. 

I don’t know about you, but it really harshes my mellow when chocolate makes a mess. So I deeply appreciate packaging that keeps little chocolate shards in their place. Wildwood’s bars are innovatively packaged with a cardboard base in a clear reclosable envelope. It’s easy to break off a piece inside the envelope keeping all the little bits that love to adhere to my clothes in their place. 

Last but not least, when I look at the Marcona almonds on the almond bar or the fruits on the orange confit bar I can see how they were carefully, even lovingly, placed on the chocolate. This mindful attention to detail that only comes from truly caring what someone will experience, on the palate, visually, and even emotionally, is rare. I value it. Perhaps you do too. If so, you may want to treat yourself or a loved one to the experience of Wildwood chocolate.

You can buy these bars, and many more, including some incredible explorations of chocolate and caramel, at http://www.wildwoodchocolate.com.

Askinosie’s New Dark Bar: Fruit Punch with Strawberry & Pineapple

In over 500 chocolate reviews I have written for this site, I can’t recall ever thinking a chocolate bar was refreshing; yet, that’s exactly the first word that came to mind as I bit into a square of this luscious fruit infused dark chocolate bar from Askinosie.

I have always been a big fan of their Mababu Tanzanian beans. The farmer is a woman who produces a single origin Trinitario bean that delivers a sumptuously indulgent taste profile. 

This 52% rendition, enhanced with organic strawberries, organic pineapple, and the barest hint of organic black pepper, was a real revelation. The ultra creamy texture, slight acidity from the fruits, and tiny kick from the black pepper created an intriguing bar of depth, complexity, balance, and nuance.

One second the strawberry flavor predominated, and the next it was the pineapple. But it was the velvety texture that held it all together.  It takes real talent to know that these assertively flavored fruits would pair best with a 52% chocolate.

As always, they source their beans directly from a small farmer groups in Ecuador, the Amazon, Tanzania, and the Philippines. In addition, they visit these groups every year to maintain mutually supportive, long-term relationships. I especially like the fact that they pay above fair trade market prices and profit share with their farmer partners. One of those female-led groups is responsible for the beans in the Fruit Punch bar.

You can find an enticing array of plain and inclusion bars on their website. Some are seasonal, but most are available year-round. See their full line at: http://www.Askinosie.com. 

Two new offerings from Dick Taylor Chocolate

Straight Bourbon Whiskey Limited Release

The first thing I noticed about this bar was the incredibly fudgy texture. It’s not so easy to achieve that with well tempered chocolate, but Dick Taylor has. The Whiskey in this bar is not an alcoholic presence; it’s supportive. Its oakiness adds complexity, nuance, and deliciousness. I loved the way they soaked the nibs in barrels from the whiskey, rather than adding it directly, as this produced a more subtle Bourbon profile without overwhelming the 70% Belize chocolate. The result is a unique, adult chocolate experience.

Chocolate Coated Cherries

In my experience, even when enrobed in dark chocolate, chocolate coated cherries are often too sweet and the cherry pieces themselves are typically too large. Dick Taylor’s chocolate coated cherries are absolutely superb. They have layers of 65% Belize dark chocolate, are dusted in cocoa, and the size is just perfect. The balance of dried, organic, slightly tart, chewy cherries with the chocolate’s richness is incredibly satisfying. (If you love chocolate and chewy fruit I also suggest their Black Fig bar. Its 72% Madagascar chocolate base is studded with little pieces of California black mission figs.)

Dick Taylor Chocolate is offering free shipping, including cold packs during the summer, for a minimum purchase of $35.

Crow & Moss Banana Cardamom Brûlée and Passionfruit Sesame Chocolate Bars

“One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats.“

Iris Murdoch.

As someone who has lived according to Ms. Murdoch’s maxim, I can assure you she’s right.

Even though Covid has made me far more aware of savoring every pleasure I possibly can, I have come to see Crow & Moss chocolate as one of the most reliable treats in my larder.

Perhaps some of you can relate to this, but I have have often found it difficult to spend money on what I saw as luxuries. As time goes by, however, I am increasingly aware of seizing as much joy as possible. For me, that has always included chocolate.

As you can tell, if you have perused any of the 500+ reviews on this site, I have sampled an embarrassment of riches. While some chocolates become favorites for a short time, others stand the test of time. Crow and Moss is one of the latter.

I adore their Vanilla Smoke bar (see separate review here: https://chocolateratings.wordpress.com/2021/05/08/crow-moss-vanilla-smoke-69/ ), as well as the highly craveable Wampusirpi and Zorzal bars.

Mike Davies, the man at the helm of Crow & Moss, just launched two new highly original bars. In this day and age, when the wildest inclusions have become almost commonplace, that’s saying a lot.

Both of Mike’s new bars are made with a blend of Dominican Zorzal and Ecuador Camino Verde. Each was a meditation in discernment, as the inclusions are subtle.

The Banana Cardamom Brûlée bar (65%) was a harmonious blend of fruit and spice. Neither flavor predominated. They simply danced together among the strains of blended Dominican Zorzal and Ecuador Camino Verde beans. The unusual combination of these flavors was quite a lure as I kept trying to see which flavor might steal the show, but they simply refused to upstage each other.

The seared, roasted bananas blended into this chocolate are organic. This is vastly different from any banana flavoring you might have had before. That’s where the nuance comes in.

The Passionfruit Sesame bar (68%) was a completely different experience. Crunchy, toasted organic sesame seeds embedded in the bottom of this bar were so captivating they stole the show from the more subtle passionfruit.  That’s not to say the passionfruit didn’t add something, it definitely added a citrusy note, I just got carried away by the bar’s fetching texture.

Crow & Moss offers free shipping with a minimum $25 purchase. You can find their entire menu here: https://crowandmoss.com/.