I am thrilled to be able to offer this origin again.  The first time was back in 2009, and I have not been able to get it again. It is Fair Trade and Organic. I do not know its lineage exactly, but I feel pretty confident saying based on appearance, flavor, aroma, a lighter than average break and paper thin husk, there is a significant portion of Criollo in this lot.

Visually this is an absolutely beautiful bean. The preparation is very even and consistent across the board. These are also a rather large bean. In sizing cocoa, 100 beans / 100 g is considered average. Very small beans might have 140-150 beans/100 g. This lot have a count of 80-85 beans/100 g. Too add to that, the shells/husk on this cocoa is very thin. Although not something I really advocate, once properly roasted, you can actually peel these by hand if you like.

The flavors are light and delicate.  Mild is the official chocolate term.  There are also fruits galore. Quite often when I am tasting a bean, I taste individual beans. This one was all over the board and intense. There was banana, strawberry, plum, mango other general tropical fruits.   Mind you, not all the beans are like this, but some were like I had eaten essence of banana or peach. A real trip. In the chocolate itself, no one flavor dominates and you get a very soft fruitiness. Nothing like Madagascar. Again, more like a ripe peach or apricot. Of course, there is chocolate which is solid without being too subtle or too bold, and is balanced by a slight bitterness, but hardly any astringency to speak of.

A word of caution on the roasting of this origin. Take it easy. If you take this cocoa bean to far, it turns much more bitter and astringent – not real great. I think that it has something to do with the fact that it is a pretty delicate bean lacking in major base notes. You often roast a bean to drive off some of the brightness and accent the lower toned flavors. If you do that here, there is not much left. So, treat it gentle, enjoy the fruits, roast it just enough to dry the husk out well so it winnows well, and don’t expect this to be a powerhouse cocoa bean. Don’t try to make it what it is not, a big beefy chocolatey bean. Expect it to be what it is and can be – a cocoa bean with significant Criollo stock, a “fine flavor” cocoa bean.

As for roasting, if you oven roast, I suggest the following. Pre-heat your oven to 350 F. Put a pound of beans into a heavy corning ware type container, about an inch deep. Put them in for 10 minutes, stirring at 5 minutes (and every 5 minutes after this). At 10 minutes, reduce the heat to 300 and roast another 10 minutes. Pull out a handful of beans for comparison. Turn off the oven and let the remaining beans set/roast for a final 10 minutes in the cooling oven. Remove them and let them cool. This should give you a nice light delicate roasted bean. Compare the two sets and see what you think and adjust your roasting from there. If you happen to be using the Behmor 1600, load 2 lbs on P2 or P3 (1 lb setting) for 16 minutes. That should also give you a nice roast. If at a point it starts to smell sharp, you most likely are done or roasting too hot (if it’s early in the roast).