Our Out of Towner articles usually have a generic chocolate bar suitcase as the feature image but this time is different. We got some coffee candies as a gift that included this clear plastic miniature suitcase carrying case so I riffed on our image with chocolates in the case instead of a suitcase made out of chocolate.
In this edition I review chocolate from North Carolina, Brazil, and Italy.
Spring & Mulberry
We got to try some pretty bars from Spring & Mulberry, Raleigh, NC, courtesy of a non-chocolate-eating friend who received them as a retirement gift. She actually got quite a lot of chocolate parting gifts which reminded me of when Cacaopod and I moved to SF from Virginia and we were amazed that people would gift us with bottles of wine without asking if we were drinkers or not — that never happened in Virginia.
The bottles piled up in our pantry. When a longtime friend came to visit and saw the stash, she remarked, “What a waste!”
Just like us slowly working through our unplanned wine cellar, our retired friend’s cache of unwanted chocolate is being shared and redistributed. Luckily chocolate bars are remarkably shelf stable so she can take her time — maybe not the decades it took us to get through our SF wine stash but they won’t go bad before someone can enjoy them.
The bars were contributed to my regular group of tasters. A unique feature of Spring & Mulberry bars is that they are sweetened with dates, not cane sugar or sugar substitutes — which made one of my irregular regular tasters happy because she avoids refined sugars. She could join in with the rest of the group tasting and opining.
Mixed Berry
The first Spring & Mulberry bar we tasted was the pretty Mixed Berry. Dried strawberry slices, whole blueberries, and crumbled raspberries added vibrant spring colors to the 72% dark chocolate bar.
The bar had a hard snap and a little texture. Strawberry was the dominant fruit flavor. The strawberries and raspberries added tartness but the dried raspberries were mostly seeds — which mimicked the texture of cacao nibs which we thought was fun. The dried blueberries added sweetness but overall the bar was not very sweet which our crowd liked.
Spring & Mulberry uses single origin cacao from Ghana for their bars — which had a nicely balanced chocolate taste. They describe the texture as velvety and I think that’s pretty accurate: It felt a little grainier than more conventional couvertures — which I think is maybe from the dates and maybe how they grind their cacao — and it coated my tongue as it melted. Velvety it is!
Coffee
The second bar we sampled was Coffee. Like the Mixed Berry bar it had a high MOR and no added sugar so it wasn’t too sweet. In addition to the no added sugar recipe this bar was unusual for coffee chocolate — it was infused with decaf coffee!
Most every coffee chocolate includes caffeine — it’s a selling point — especially for the last chocolates in this article. There was no explanation on the wrapper or website as to why decaf, but it didn’t matter taste-wise. The bar had a strong coffee chocolate flavor. Again it was slightly grainy but no one in the group found that unpleasant and nobody cared about the missing caffeine.
Blood Orange
The 3rd Spring & Mulberry bar we tried was Blood Orange. It smelled chocolatey as soon as we opened it and had an immediate orange chocolate flavor — exactly what you want in an orange chocolate. It had a similar texture to the other 2 bars: High MOR, a little grainy, and it coated the tongue.
The group liked this bar too, commenting again on how the chocolate is not too sweet but sweet enough. They did say that they would like it to be easier to break into tasting squares. With the high MOR it kinda shattered into an array of differently sized pieces. The custom mold is pretty — it’s the company logo — but it’s not designed for sharing.
It was a minor point and overall the group would happily endure the mix of uneven pieces for another bar — but this was the end of the gift assortment. Spring & Mulberry has more flavors that look interesting — they even have a Mulberry & Fennel bar. You can buy their bars online and at shops around the country. Visit their site for locations.
Baianí Chocolates
Cacaopod and I met the founders and owners of Baianí Chocolates, São Paulo, Brazil, at the Craft Chocolate Experience last April, where they had their full size bars plus packs of tasting squares. I got a sampler pack so I could easily try a range of their flavors.
The eight tasting squares in my pack were a good size —1-1/2″ square x 1/8″ thick — they were big enough that Cacaopod and I shared them.
One of the unique features of Baianí Chocolates is that because they are located in Brazil they feature some uniquely Brazilian flavors. The wrappers were not printed for the international market so I needed to use Google Translate to see what most of the flavors were. For example my favorite flavor of the pack was Inclusão Crocante de Maracujá. I knew as soon as I tasted it what it was, but the Portuguese name for it? Not a clue.
Especiarias Brasileras
The pack included chocolates that ranged from white to 70% cacao. We tasted in that direction too starting with Especiarias Brasileras which was a white chocolate infused with Brazilian spices. The package didn’t say which spices were used but I could smell spices as soon as I opened the package and it had visible specks of various sizes scattered through the square.
The piece had a good snap for a white chocolate and the spices were a nice flavor combo with the buttery not too sweet chocolate. The spices also gave it a slight graininess. I couldn’t identify the spices confidently — I thought I tasted licorice, nutmeg, and allspice. It reminded me a little of Tiny House’s Sarsaparilla bar that we also got at the Craft Chocolate Experience which makes sense since they are also Brazilian. We liked this flavor.
Duplo Caramelo
The other white piece in our pack, Duplo Caramelo, was a double caramel flavored white chocolate. It was a pretty tawny color and had a soft break. It was slightly grainy with an interesting nutty browned butter caramel flavor with unusual citrus notes. It was more of a milky white than a sugary white. I liked it.
Ao Leite
The Ao Leite was a no-inclusion 57% milk chocolate which was slightly grainy and not as tasty as the 2 white selections. We thought it had an odd slightly floral taste and it just wasn’t a satisfying milk chocolate.
Inclusão Crocante de Maracujá
Lucky for me the next square we tried turned out to be my favorite and one to recommend. The Inclusão Crocante de Maracujá translated as “inclusion of crunchy passion fruit.” Intriguing.
The chocolate used was a 65% dark and the piece had a good snap. It smelled like passion fruit and tasted strongly of passion fruit —delicious! It was a passion fruit bomb with the chocolate as the background.
But crunchy? We didn’t perceive any crunch — the bar had a smooth texture and no crunchy bits. I thought Google Translate made a mistake but I checked the description of the bar on their website and it said, “…crunchy texture resulting from demerara sugar caramel mixed with the dehydrated pulp of passion fruit.”
I dunno, doesn’t matter, crunchy or not we still recommend this one.
Caipirinha
A square that did have some texture was the 65% Caipirinha. Caipirinha is a famous Brazilian cocktail made with cachaça (sugarcane liquor), sugar, and lime — and this piece put all of that into some understated chocolate so the inclusions could shine.
The back of the square was covered with aromatic dried lime zest and sugar granules. The experience was very cocktail-y with a bite from the lime zest and a tingly sensation from the liquor. According to their website, they infuse the cacao nibs in cachaça for 30 days before grinding and conching them. They also infuse the dehydrated lime zest with cachaça. That level of infusion meant I could taste the distinctive spirit and the sweetened lime with the chocolate as an undertone. It’s a fun flavor and I recommend it.
Café
Café is coffee, of course, and this coffee infused 65% cacao square was a collaboration with Moka Clube, a coffee roaster in São Paulo. The bar had a crisp break and was slightly grainy but satisfyingly so — if that makes sense. It started very chocolatey then more coffee tasting as I rolled it around in my mouth and it melted.
This was where the texture was welcomed. It seemed like I was releasing more of the coffee flavor by rolling it around. Probably TMI, but I wanted to note the experience. The coffee and cacao Baianí chose for this piece were an excellent flavor combo. Along with the pleasant texture it was addictive.
Laranja
Going up in cacao strength the Laranja was a 70% piece. It translated as orange and sure enough it was an orange chocolate made with orange zest. It smelled and started out tasting chocolatey and as it melted it got more orangey. The tiny bits of zest gave it a sour tangy taste — like chocolate marmalade. I loved it, Cacaopod not so much. If you like marmalade and chocolate, you gotta try this one.
Intenso
The last square in our pack was another 70% piece, Intenso, which was also labeled “Bold Roast Chocolate” — sounds like coffee not chocolate. The square had a hard break and smooth texture. It was a more savory chocolate and slightly bitter but not unexpectedly so since Intenso = Intense. I’d rank it a little more bitter than other 70% bars but it’s nowhere near as bitter as an 80%.
Baianí explains on their website that they are borrowing from coffee roasting techniques to roast cacao at different temps to create different flavors and aromas. They have 2 70% cacao options — a mild roast and this bold roast. They didn’t include the mild in the tasting squares but I would like to compare the 2 roasts to see the differences. I wonder how roasting at different temps compares to roasting 2 different origins at the same temp or how it compares to different cacao percentages. It’s an interesting concept.
Locally you can buy Baianí Chocolates’ bars at Chocolate Covered. Check their website for other locations across Brazil, the US, and Canada.
Pocket Coffee
Pocket Coffee by Italian chocolate conglomerate Ferrero was the gift chocolate — along with the little suitcase and some Kopiko candies — a friend brought back from S. Korea. Kopiko is a Korean coffee hard candy featured in lots of K dramas which we both watch. She included the Ferrero coffee chocolates because she knows I love chocolate.
The truffle-sized Pocket Coffee chocolates were individually wrapped and the back of the label said “Liquid Center” — helpful because it was literally a mini-shot of sweetened espresso inside a chocolate shell. It’s not like a liquid caramel that still has some substance to it. It’s kinda big to fit in your mouth all at once but if you can, go for it because if you’re not careful when biting into it you could spill it. This is not a sharing chocolate.
Other than that, what’s not to like? It’s coffee and chocolate! The label identified the coffee as Arabica and it tasted like it. The shell is made of a good bittersweet chocolate which had an unexpected sugary texture inside the otherwise smooth piece. Even with the hidden sugar coating it was not too sweet.
Pocket Coffee is only made in the cooler months because its chocolate shell is no match for summer heat. If you can’t get to Italy where it’s ubiquitous from October through May, you can buy it online and at some imported food shops.
