Somewhere in the house is a box of whole Blue Mountain coffee beans brought home from our honeymoon in Jamaica...a long damn time ago. Blue Mountain is perhaps one of the best roasts available, but as I understand it it's hard to get in the US without mortgaging something. That's because the Japanese are the primary stop in the Jamaican coffee trade, therefore when you see Blue Mountain at the store it's either a blend or it's a lot of damn money per pound. I'm not much of a coffee drinker, but we hang onto that box because, by gum, it was soooo cheap to get over there.
Apparently, Germany is getting some action, too, otherwise I wouldn't have this bar of 65% dark from Coppeneur here. This company specializes in single origin and single plantation bars. What's the difference? Single origin denotes all the cacao came from one place, like Colombia or Brazil. Single plantation means that all the beans in the bar came from the same farm. So what I have here is a blend of chocolate grown from the island in general, and who knows how that influences the taste. I swear, though, I opened the box and smelled another herbal scent associated with the country. If only.
For a dark bar, which by the way is fairly thin and snaps easily and loudly, there is a nice gloss. The stamp you see on the box image above is on the bar as well, and inside the box is a nifty little booklet overview of the company and their product. I like the nose of this bar, too - there's a faintness in the coffee after you release the aroma, but once it's held on your tongue the flavor is alive and bold. It's truly a dark mocha-like sensation that almost begs for an accompanying cup of the hot stuff.
I don't intend to keep this bar around as long as we have the coffee. There isn't much in the bar anyway, about two percent of overall ingredients, but the taste tells you just how far that amount goes. If your idea of a perfect marriage is cacao and coffee, here's your gold standard.
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