Oriol Balaguer Chocolate Negro 80% cacao

About: Oriol Balanguer created a line of boutique shopped, carefully marketed to appeal to pretentious, up-scale shoppers. They emphasize perfection and care and uniqueness and so on. The unwatchable video on their web site starts with rolling clouds and pompously asks "who places limits on creativity?"

So it's with some chagrin that one has to admin that this chocolate is very good.

It's a bakery, and who knows how good their good are. I'm pretty sure I'll stop by next time I'm in Barcelona, because.. did I mention the chocolate is very good?


Flavor:  This is a bean to bar chocolate by flavor, but maybe not by manufacture. It's not overly roasted and is missing all bitterness. It's smooth as can be, especially at 80%, which I attribute to adding cocoa butter. Nice mellow flavor. Fruity. Long lasting.

Texture: Smooth. Very smooth.

My rating: 8 for excellent flavor and texture. Not a 9 because while it's good, and indeed, very good, you won't fall all over yourself in shock.

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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