A couple of days ago, we had our friends from Singapore over for dinner, and since I didn’t really had a (chocolate) dessert prepared, I decided to throw in some luxury bars for a chocolate tasting. The table was honored with Amedei Chuao, Amedei Porcelana and Valrhona Caraïbe, all from the “London Collection” and Marcolini’s “Tabasco” and “Puerto Cabello” origin bars.
We started with the Valrhona to get our palate ‘choq’ready. This 66% bar is a blended Trinitario creation, which combines a nice texture with a pleasantly bitter though and roasted taste. A powerful tone to start.
Then we headed for the beautiful Amedei Porcelana. The Amedei Porcelana his is a very rare bar, and Amedei only produce a limited amount of Porcelana chocolate each year. The boxes are even individually numbered! The texture was a first big difference with Valrhona, but the flavoring really was like a slow hike on the discovery of cacao for the palate. The bar starts only slowly to release its various characteristics from subtle fruity tones towards a real chocolaty sensation.
Such and addictive signature taste had me grab on the famous “Amedei CHUAO” without hesitation: ranked one of the world’s best bars, to some even the reference. Contrary to the Porcelana, the CHUOA doesn’t have you wait to be indulged in a sublime and overwhelming cacao sensation. Darker, stronger, more powerful, punchy, and thick on the tongue, this bar reveals how intense and complex cacao can be.
To boost the comparison vibe at the table, Marcolini joined our exploration of origin bars. Both the Tabasco and Puerto Cabello came in with very pronounced flavors, both times however so strong you would even suspect Marcolini to add in spices and herbs. After the subtle and strong explorations of cacao with Amedei, Marcolini almost only seemed focused on getting one flavor in charge, which came a bit like a deception, but it depends how you look at it probably.
It’s an easy decision: the Amedei Porcelana and Chuao really got gold, mostly because they mastered to always keep a chocolaty undertone throughout a great palate experience, whilst staying close with the nature of cacao. They had superbly crafted taste curvatures, releasing flavors one after another.
The excitement isn’t that much in having one very particular flavor (I think this is where Marcolini focuses way too much), but Amedei crafts bars that bring the full flavor cacao experience to live, from the first moment you break a chunk until the last bit melted and swallowed along your mouth.
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