Nick's Chocolate

I love trying stuff from new chocolate makers, especially new Australian chocolate makers. Usually the road to getting my hands on the stuff involves a couple of days or a week so the wait can be intense. Nicks Chocolate was well worth the wait! I purchased one of each of his four offerings, Venezuela, Guatemala, PNG and Ecuador. The Venezuelan was a Carenero Superior, which I am a sucker for, love it. Nick formulates at 75% which I felt was a little high, I think the flavours would have been a bit more emboldened by going to a 70-72% chocolate but that is personal preference probably. The flavours were spot on, it tasted like Carenero, a delicious subtle complex chocolate, very yummy. The Ecuador was fantastic, huge floral bouquet, Jasmine flowers, and at the other end of the spectrum deliciously chocolatey, as good as I have tasted, fabulous. I had never tried a Guatemalan chocolate before and was not disappointed, this is a chocolate makers chocolate for sure, the chocolate had full flavours right from the instant you put it in your mouth, so complex and unique, good astringency, magnificent. I think that this bean would probably make the most delicious dark milk chocolate, I would love to be working with formulating this bean. It would lend itself very well to a number of flavourings too because of its strength and distinctiveness. The PNG was my least favourite but only because I dont particularly like the smoked flavour that quite often comes with PNG cocoa because of their fire drying practices, that said Nick has done very well to tame and integrate this flavour in this chocolate, a difficult thing to do I have found with certain batches I have used over the years. Underneath the smoke it is a full flavoured cacao with great fruit notes and good chocolate intensity typical of PNG. It will have its fans I am sure. On the whole I am jealous of the quality of the beans that Nick has to work with. A fantastic range of chocolate with very distinct, individual flavour profiles. Be sure to get your hands on some!