I made a point of picking up a bar of Duffy's Chocolate when I visited this year's Chocolate Festival and it has taken me all this time to review it. Duffy's Chocolate or Red Star Chocolate Ltd are one of a small band of artisan chocolate makers producing their own chocolate in the UK. They are very particular about the type of cocoa beans they use - they may come from a single harvest or a single region but they are always single origin. This goes a long way to ensure that the beans are of excellent quality. However, as many Chocolatiers will tell you, chocolate is such a fickle product not only to work with but also in regards to taste and flavour. The same bar made with exactly the same beans may take on a completely different character the following year! Much like wine I suppose.
To achieve superb flavours not only require's excellent cocoa beans but also a certain degree of determination and patience, a good chocolate may take up to 50 hours to conch. This is where the chocolate Alchemist's take over to develop the individual tastes and aromas by crushing the cocoa between large granite rollers.
The Chocolate: This particular bar is handmade with cocoa beans from the beautiful Bocas Del Toro archipelago, Panama. If you've never been lucky enough to visit Panama, that includes me, then Google it and you'll see how beautiful it is. Stunning! A 72% dark chocolate a taste profile described as light cherries and liquorice with leather and raisins in the after-taste as long as it's not in the afterlife, as I read it!
The bar is so smooth and there is a coolness about it, almost 'glass' like in feel. My picture actually makes it look darker than it really is. The aroma is definitely leather rather than tobacco. The liquorice flavour comes through very quickly as the first chunk melts luxuriously in your mouth. I can't pick out the cherries or raisins but there is a slight bitterness towards the end. If I only had one word to describe this bar it would be delicious!
Well done Duffy for bringing us another great bar and at £3.50 for 80g you're spoiling us. In fact I'm amazed at the price! At the recent Chocolate Festival some companies were selling their bars for £6.00/100g. This one will be at the top of my Christmas list!
To buy join the queue! Joking, click here.
This bar of chocolate has been hiding in the back of my draw for three or four weeks so as I thought it would be good to review this bar today as I have a back log of chocolate to review. I like chocolate back logs!
For those of you who have not read my blog before Duffy is one of only three people who produce chocolate from bean to bar in the UK. So these bars are particularly special.
Packaging: As with the Milk bar I recently tasted their is a beautiful picture of the Andes mountains (I assume they're the Andes?). This really gets me in the mood for tasting as it reminds you how far these beans have come. Many of us probably take this fact for granted but we have to remember how these beans reached the shores of the UK. On this subject Duffy is hoping to give back some of his profits to help cocoa farmers in Ecuador sometime in the future. Ingredients are listed on the back and include Cocoa beans, organic sugar and cocoa butter.
The Chocolate: This particular dark chocolate is 72% and is produced from single origin Ecuadorian Calceta beans. In terms of flavours this bar is described as having deep, warm flavours with hints of citrus, soft fruit and bananas. Having carefully removed the gold foil the smell which emanates is delicious. If only I could survive on smelling chocolate! This is a good start and it just keeps getting better. The chocolate is bright and has a shiny glow about it which is so enticing. Rich cocoa with a hint of sweetness hits the nose. The snap is crisp and sharp. The mouth feel is fantastic and the cool chocolate takes a little time to melt. I'm trying to pick up the citrus flavours but I'm getting fruit...oh hold on now I'm getting the citrus! My palate is a bit dry almost chalky but maybe this is because I've eaten 6 squares already?
This a great bar of chocolate and I will not hesitate in recommending it to you even at £3.50 for 80g it is worth every penny. I'm going to have to give this bar a high 9/10 for just simply delicious chocolate.
If you want to buy this bar visit Duffy's online shop
You might also like to read other reviews of Duffy's chocolate:
Duffy's Star of Peru 70%
Duffy's Corazon Fine Milk
