Arete Brasil 75% Organic Dark Chocolate

                                   

About: This is the second Arete bar I've had, this one hand delivered to the shop where I bought it by the maker himself. If I sound somewhat star-struck, it's because this is amazingly good chocolate. David and Leslie Senk make this bean to bar chocolate - nothing but beans and sugar - in the unlikely city of Milpitas, home to Silicon Valley technology parks and little else of interest.

Their manufacturing center looks small - see the pictures on their web site, which reflects the kind of maniacal devotion to chocolate that I understand too well. But size doesn't matter here.

Flavor: Fantastic. Bite in and at first you think it's just a regular chocolate bar. The regular chocolatey earthy flavor is pleasant and rich, but not particularly distinctive. Just as you are letting the chocolate melt in your mouth and shrugging off a pedestrian experience, you get a hit of something. Something fruity and sense-filling. It grows and grows until you can't help but "wow." The mix of fruity flavors is hard to describe - berries, tea, .. .did I say fruity? Oh man. 

Texture: Smooth and nice. 

My rating: Eight? Maybe 9... The texture is smooth, but without extra butter, it's perhaps not super mind-boggling. Still.. this is an amazing chocolate. Maybe the best I've ever had so far.

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.

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