Text 11637, 97 rader
Skriven 2008-08-06 22:08:00 av Michael Loo (1:18/200.0)
Ärende: picnic tastes 726
=========================
I'd lugged a bunch of chocolate in my luggage for a tasting:

Vosges

Oaxaca Bar (guajillo and pasilla chiles, Tanzanian bittersweet
75) - my favorite of the lot, a nice slow burn, good balance of
bitter and sweet. An excellent bar.

Red Fire (ancho and chipotle chiles, cinnamon 55) - a little on
the sweet side, plus an odd texture. The cinnamon I thought a
little obtrusive, though I liked the sneaky heat.

Mo's Bacon Bar (deep milk chocolate, bacon, alderwood smoked
salt) - a little too sweet for me, a little too salty as well;
Others didn't seem to mind either. The smokiness goes nicely
even though it's a hammy rather than a bacony experience.

Leysieffer

Earl Grey Tea 55 - a little odd; the Hafflys pointed out that
there really wasn't tea listed in the ingredients; merely
bergamot, which is the most distinct flavoring ingredient in
Earl Grey. I actually think there was more to the story, that
there may have been tea extract as well, but the label didn't
say so. I found this quite a bit too sweet.

Earl Grey Tea milk 33 - this was flavored to a similar strength
with the above, but as it was milk chocolate, the bergamot seemed
to be a little muted by the dairy. The sweetness was comparable
to the above as well. This was one of the two chocolates we tasted
that I would not eat again, let alone buy.

Jahrgangschokolade 2006 99 - very dusky, strong chocolate aroma
with a touch of coffee; good acid on the palate, some tropical
fruit, maybe a touch of coconut, otherwise the essence of dark
chocolate - lovely but overwhelming, not for every day.

Ghirardelli

Intense Dark Twilight Delight - quite acid, almost lemony, snappy,
slightly grainy melt. Waxy bite. Not bad but I'd have expected more
flavor from a 72% (did you notice that I did not say anything about
the flavor, which was kind of negligible)?

Midnight Reverie 86 -  hard melt. Nice chocolatiness once you
got it to melt at all. A bit nutty, coffee, not sweet at all:
probably the best compromise for us who don't want to eat a
99 all the time.

The following two were there already; I don't know who brought them.

Nestle

Bittersweet morsels 62 - a strong coconut aroma, a little
perplexing, followed by dark chocolate, vanilla, and coconut
on the palate. Sort of similar to the Noi Sirius. Fairly sweet,
not obtrusively. A nice snacking chocolate, good with beer.
Probably good for baking, but who bakes?

Russell Stover

Vanilla Bean Brulee with 70 - this wasn't really a 70 but a
composed wafer with a nondescript slightly vanillaed very
sweet filling sandwiched with a too sweet and hard to get a
handle on 70. Definitely not something to look out for unless
you like way sweet candy.

There were also the Noi Sirius Icelandic stuff and the two
Art Bars for which quick tasting notes were posted from Dave's.

Other tastes from the Shipps, I think, possibly Shenk for the wasabi:

Harry & David

artichoke salsa - good artichoke taste (a lot of acid, because
I guess that's the way you preserve artichokes, so the taste
was not of fresh but of canned), but I wouldn't go out of my way
for it, as when I want salsa I want salsa, not some random
vegetable of which the growers had a surplus!

pomegranate salsa - I think this was a mistake. Pomegranate
has no place in salsa, period. I can't believe anyone actually
liking this, other than someone for whom the search for
antioxidant was the prime mover of life. It could just as
well have been raspberry salsa, for aught I knew, anyhow.

Both were labeled medium; one had a bit more heat than the
other, but as both were down between mild and negligible in
that department, I didn't note which.

Yamachu "one table one wasabi" wasabi in a tube - sweet, salty,
horseradishy; nice fresh taste considering it came out of a
toothpaste tube.


--- Maximus/2 3.01
 * Origin: Nocturnal State BBS (1:18/200)