--> Question: When the subject of food the taste of burnt means what?
Back

Review: Ecuador

Paint the rainbow with TTTT starting this week.

Review: Ecuador Coconut w Pink Salt

Instagram reviewer 70andabovechocolate@RidgewoodChocolate -- Paint the rainbow with TTTT starting this week. With pink. With Ridgewood Chocolate formerly [sic] of Ridgewood, Queens (just a stone's throw away from East Williamsburg and Bushwick in Brooklyn). They're now operating out of Manhattan [sic].
New York City is teeming with hidden gustatory wonders, but it was only a few months ago that I learned of its bean to bar top secret. That's Ridgewood Chocolate, of course. Constantine Kalpaxis is a chocolatemaker who talks the talk and walks the walk. His Ecuador 75% Coconut & Pink Salt (there you have the pink) is the result of nine minutes and seven hours of chocolate alchemy.
This is an intensely smoky and overcast take on classic Ecuadorian cacao. Like a brumous morning sky in Catamarca, Newcastle or Paarl (read: anywhere). Like a passel of Cambridge burnt cream, barley bread, tobacco, lapsang souchong tea, tuba fresca and wu mei in a coco chocolatero from the 1600s.
Literally like no chocolate bar you've ever had in your life -- a found object.
And underline that word "smoky" again.


My response: Thanks for the review of @Ridgewoodchocolate bars. With a nudge from @chocambas, It looks like a pretty good review from our perspective. We embrace the Mallard reaction and caramelization in our alchemy, which leaves evidence of minimal oxidation; therefore, the antioxidants are intact, as are the intense flavor notes. The benefits are physiological, hence the phrase "food of the Gods." The Mallard reaction is magical.
You can research it, but imagine eating bread without the crispy browning effect on top.