Italian Chocolate Aficionados Sharon Terenzi of The Chocolate Journalist shared another fantastic review of our Made in Maui chocolate. This time around, she tried our 65% Dark Blood Orange Chocolate, made with cacao sourced from Costa Esmeraldas, Ecuador:

"On the tasting table today: new Hawaiian bean-to-bar (also farm-to-bar) maker @mauichocolate created this 65% Blood Orange with heirloom cacao cultivated on an award-winning single estate in the Esmeraldas province of Ecuador (let’s see if you can guess who that is), combined with distilled essential oil of blood orange 😋🍫🍊

I thought the brownie-like consistency was a result of the warm weather and me not having a good place yet to store the chocolate in my new apartment, but nope. On their website they say: “This chocolate is made in European style with ample cocoa butter and a silky texture.” Don’t think too French style though. This is pleasantly velvety rather than sickly buttery.

The best part is the combination between the added flavor of blood oranges and the intrinsic flavors of Ecuadorian cacao. With its strong vegetal and floral notes, the Ecuadorian cacao offers the perfect base to let the orange be the protagonist and shine 🌱🌺

If the cacao had any arrogant fruity or citrusy notes, the orange would probably get lost in translation. Big chocolate brands don’t have to worry about matching the aromatic profile of their cacao with the flavors of their inclusions. They just blend away and over roast all the cacao they use, so it becomes a cheap, tasteless and dull base for any added flavor. They then throw in a ton of sugar and vanilla, and voilà! They tricked your palate real good 👅👈🏼😈

Craft chocolate makers instead spend a lot of time combining the tasting notes of a specific cacao with the flavors of their inclusions. It’s a thoughtful process that requires knowledge, good taste, trials and errors. My appreciation for them is immense (coming from someone who can’t even match the most basic herbs with the right dishes).

This is basically a dark chocolate covered orange cake. Ethical, crafted with care, with traceable and high-quality ingredients, made by well-known professionals in the industry (Daniel from @cacao_services_inc, anybody?).

Couldn't have asked for a better pre-workout
snack 💪🏼🍫

Do you like orange and dark chocolate together?"