ChocoFiles

We have an annual chocolate festival:  http://www.pvchocolatefestival.com/  Consider yourself invited. 

Oh do come and visit us Talamanca Organica Cacao and Fine Chocolate located on the delicious coastal slopes of Caribbean Costa Rica. We invite you for a farm tour! 

Hello!

I have tried Ritual! A friend sent me a bar, and then got me hooked. It's available here in Boulder. I have not tried Solstice, though. I will definitely put it on my list! Thank you so much for the suggestion. I will check out your reviews too. Very cool.

Thanks for being my first 'friend' on The Chocolate Life! I just finally got myself signed up...don't know why I haven't done that before now! Looking forward to chatting with you more in future.

Thanks, could be a while since the trees are still very young... I'll start with imported beans first, hopefully within 6 months if things go well with our current plan.

Hi Choco Files,

I currently do not sell my chocolate. Although, that is my eventual plan. Right now I'm just improving my craft and having friends and family as my guinea pig tasters, which they love! Right now, I'm making 2 - 10 lbs nano-batches. They're usually gone within three weeks as I share most of it.

As for my favorite origin...hmmm...that's tough. Of what I've made so far, I really enjoyed my Dominican Republic Conacado COOP, Ambanja Madagascar, and Papua New Guinea bars, which are very different in flavors. Primarily, these bars were a function of getting access to higher quality beans. If I had access to any beans out there, I'd love to make some Xoconusco or Porcelana bars. I did have the opportunity to make some Chuao bars, but the beans themselves were of a lower grade and so the bars turned out very astringent. I can't recall if that means the beans were under- or over-fermented. I'm still learning. I thought I did very well on the roast too. So, I'm learning that roasting is the main function that I can control in regard to flavor of the final product, whereas cacao genetics and fermentation are in the farmer's direct control. My hope is find better quality beans. Currently, the Dandelion guys in San Francisco are gracious enough to let me buy some of their imported beans.

I'm sure that's probably more than you wanted to hear, but I do like talking chocolate. Thanks for asking!! If you'd like, I'll be making a new batch of bars in the next three weeks using beans from Maya Mountain in Belize (again Dandelion imported), I can send you a bar or two just because. I'm also going to send Ben Rasmussen (Potomac Chocolate) a couple bars as he's been really awesome at giving me hints, tips, and ideas.

Anyway, Cheers,

Dave

So much fun meeting you today Lowe! Thanks for stopping in and enjoying a bit of discourse. Made my day. :D

Thank youLowe! You just made my day! I saw your comment on my blog too. I'm going to track down that Pralus bar and give it a try. I've been nibbling on a Pralus Colombie bar recently.

Hi Lowe,

Nice to know you. I've read your ChocoFile before I join TCL, it's a great work, sometimes I compared my tasting note with your (and others as well). I like your scoring for the chocolate you've eaten.

But,recently, I'm out of stock of fine chocolate. It's really hard to find fine chocolate in my home country, the finest I can get is Valrhona Grand Cru line (they are rare though).