Castronovo Belize Maya Mountain 70% cacao

Flavorful and sweet, as I have come to expect from well made Belize-origin chocolate. Flavors that come to mind are cherry, butterscotch, toast. Smooth aftertaste. Very nice! 9.8

Ingredients: cocoa beans, cane sugar*, cocoa butter*
*organic ingredients

I note that the label shows two awards for this bar from 2016 -- they have maintained excellent taste in the current edition.

French Broad Peru Norandino 70% cacao

Fairly bitter, with a slightly grainy texture. Cherry note is strongest, but dark sweetness is apparent. Aftertaste is astringent, but not sharply so. 7.8

Note: the bar may have been subject to poor storage during shipment, as one side of the bar has some melting and powdered surface.

Ingredients: Organic cacao, organic sugar

Dandelion Sierra Leone Gola Rainforest 70% Cacao

A good chocolate bar with uncomplicated but tasty flavor profile. Some sweetness of molasses evens out the gentle bitterness. Aftertaste is of average duration. An unremarkable but competent chocolate. 7.2

Chapon Madagascar 75% cacao

This bar is fruity and flavorful, but also robust and bracing. Citrus and berry flavors can be tasted, with a rich cacao base. The aftertaste is fairly light. 9.2

www.chocolat-chapon.com

The label is in French, as would be expected from this French chocolate maker. On their website the description for this bar is: "Fruity and fresh in mouth. Aroma of candied mirabelles plums, light tangy of red fruits (cherry) and notes of almonds.
Extra fine chocolate, powerful, slightly bitter with a lasting flavor."

$14 / 2.65oz.

Harper Macaw Brazil Tomé Açu Bourbon Barrel Aged 75% cacao

This is a first for ChocoCheck, a chocolate bar made with cacao aged in bourbon barrels. The bourbon and oak flavors are certainly noticeable. Other flavors take a backseat, but are mostly from the same palette -- maple and cherry. The bitterness if fairly low and the aftertaste is clean. 9.0

Ingredients: cocoa beans, cane sugar*, cocoa butter*
*organic

The label mentions that the bar was made in the spirit of experimentation. From my tasting the experiment was a success. I do not review chocolates with added flavorings (except for vanilla in prior years) or add-ins, but this processing technique of aging the cacao beans in an oak barrel is an interesting angle taken from whiskey manufacturing. I will be interested to taste other applications of the technique.

Rózsavölgyi Tanzania Mababu 75% cacao

A very flavorful bar. There is a strong cherry note to start, followed by a airy, lemon-meringue sweet-citrus taste. Bitterness is very low, and the cherry carries through in the aftertaste. 9.5

Ingredients: cocoa beans, organic cane sugar, organic cocoa butter

www.rozsavolgyi.com

This chocolate maker is located in Budapest. I had thought I reviewed one of their bars previously, but could not find one on ChocoCheck. Looking at my reviews of other bars with Tanzania cacao, most ratings are above 9.0, with the lowest at 7.7 (a Whole Foods bar).

Rózsavölgyi has an artistic mold, well worth including in this post.

Alnatura Feine Bitter 70% cacao

Quite bitter and stark. Earthy and woodiness comes to mind, but some sweetness with a touch of maple. Long aftertaste with trailing bitterness. 7.0

www.alnatura.de

Zutaten: Kakaomasse*, Rohrohzucker*, Kakaobutter*
* aus biologischer Landwirtschaft

which translates to:

Ingredients: cocoa mass*, raw sugar*, cocoa butter*
* from organic agriculture

One of the benefits of my colleagues know that I am a chocolate taster is that my desk is often piled high with chocolates they bring back from trips. This time Agam brought back a bounty of Swiss chocolate from his recent trip to Europe.

There were three dark chocolates in the batch which I will review here. The others are being enjoyed across the team.