Dandelion Chocolate 70% Venezuela

 

About: Dandelion is a bean to bar manufacturer in San Francisco. They make a variety of chocolate bars, all seriously chocolaty. They "roast, crack, sort, winnow, grind, conch, and temper small batches of beans and then mold and package each bar by hand." And bless them, there's no milk chocolate in sight! It's all 70% plus.  They started in 2010 by opening a store after playing around with chocolate for a while and getting encouragement. Their website gives a great background on chocolate and  chocolate making - very nice.



Flavor:  They state this chocolate has "notes of almonds, chocolate fudge, and dulce de leche." I'm not sure I taste that, but I taste a lot. Certainly it's more an earthy chocolate rather than a fruity chocolate, though I taste notes of raisins and dates. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. Your chances of getting this particular batch are slim. But as a representative of what Dandelion can do, this bar shines.  Flavor +2

Texture: Smooth, though just slightly brittle. Creamy finish. 

My rating: A very good bar with a solid 8. 

Rating Value	Meaning
1	Really bad chocolate. There's something just really really wrong here in almost every imaginable respect.
2	A bar with this rating has at least two drawbacks.
3	A bar where something is starting to get seriously wrong.... for example, really weak flavor with an otherwise acceptable texture.
4	This bar is below average, but just slightly. Mostly it's not worth eating again. Something isn't quite up to par, for example a poor texture but fine flavor.
5	This is an average good bar that's worth eating. There's nothing really wrong with it, but also nothing particularly spectacular. Or, perhaps it has a good characteristic that's evenly counter-weighted by something weak.
6	A solidly good bar with one characteristic that's above par, for example a great texture.
7	An solidly good chocolate that has two above par characteristics, but nothing mind-blowing. Good, above average flavor, but nothing to die for.
8	An excellent bar with no weaknesses and at least one characteristic that's super.
9	An awesome bar to die for with amazing texture and flavor.
10	You have been touched by God.

Back to the list of bars