Day 12: Sitka spruce in plain chocolate


I know, deja vu!  Yes, we have had a Sitka spruce chocolate already - but it was in the Advent as an award winner - this one is in the calendar as it is a tree flavour (I was trying to cover all foraging bases when curating the collection).  And it is the same dried Sitka spruce tips ground into a chocolate, but this time a plain version of the Guatemala from Chocolate Tree..  We love the milk version they make with these beans, but also love this 65% plain, and it responds so well to the Sitka spruce.

It is great fun when chocolate makers play with milk and plain versions of chocolate with the same batch of beans.  Each brings out a different aspect of the cocoa beans themselves.  Often I wonder if makers create a milk chocolate version when a bean is not really standing up on its own in a plain - to be able to round off rough edges in flavour, or dilute it a little as there is less cocoa in a milk version than a plain.  But in this case, there is nothing lacking in the plain - the cocoa beans are fabulous - they just work well with a little milk as well as without it!


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