Thursday, July 7, 2011

Montezuma: Orange Ecuadorian Chocolate

After I checked out that enjoyable salted dark chocolate bar from Montezuma, I looked at other pieces that Natalie had sent me from thousands of miles away. More Montezuma bars begged for evaluation. But which one to move along to first?

I spied one that would make Hollie salivate and make Hannah cry. Divisive chocolate is somehow appealing to me. Maybe I like conflict. Maybe I just liked the orange and black wrapper on this Ecuador dark chocolate with juicy orange.

Once I removed that eye-catching wrapper, I was greeted with a citrus aroma.

Coffee is the first flavor that emerges from the chocolate, with orange quickly following and then fading away such that there is only a hint of the citrus – perhaps subtle enough that even Hannah would enjoy it. The flavor is intense and long-lasting, which is at least partially because of the slow, buttery melt that is perfectly smooth and not at all grainy.

While the bar is nice, for a bar advertised as bar enhanced with juicy orange, it is a little light on the citrus flavor, and the orange is generally subtle enough that it seems like just another flavor note in a complex chocolate.

How orange should orange chocolate be? And is it more important to make Hollie or Hannah happy?

6 comments:

  1. Hannah! I vote Hannah! :D

    Oh, my chocolate-northern-hemisphere-sister, I do so appreciate your tentative suggestion that the orange may be subtle enough for me to enjoy it. However, seeing as I can sniff out and be made queasy by orange in chocolate that other people would swear they can't taste, I think I'd have to bow out.

    And reiterate that I vote Hannah.

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  2. As your writing pertains to your taste buds, I think it's more important to make you happy! Or at least interested in what you're chomping down on.

    Juicy orange intrigued me quite a lot, so how disappointing that the flavor quickly faded. I had images of OJ oozing out of chocolate, as caramel is often wont to do.

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  3. I've eaten chocolate orange before (like the chocolate shaped like an orange and then you eat wedges?) It's delicious!

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  4. It's more important for me! YESSS. bahaha. That seriously sounds so good. I was really salivating when reading this. I'm sitting in a car in NYC traffic right now. This is a very hard situation right now umm.

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  5. Happy 461st anniversary of the European discovery of chocolate...

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  6. Sounds like a wonderful combination! You are from WA DC? I'm from WA State.

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