Maker's Choice, El Carmen with Coffee Crunch

To craft this bar we start with our directly sourced El Carmen cacao beans, and add directly sourced coffee from El Recreo Roasterie in West Roxbury.  The owners of El Recreo, husband and wife team Hector and Miriam Morales, import all their Arabica coffee beans directly from their family farm in Jinotega, Nicaragua and roast the beans themselves.

We use their Light Roast Estate Premium coffee for this bar.  We coarsely grind the beans and then add them directly to our tempering machine, which allows the small pieces of the coffee beans to mix evenly with the chocolate, ensuring consistent flavor with each bite.  Although the chocolate is smooth the bits of coffee bean give a satisfying coffee crunch.

We source the cacao beans for this bar from Cacao Bisiesto, which has a fermentation facility just outside of Matagalpa, Nicaragua.  The owner, Giff Laube, has his own cacao farm but also sources from dozens of farmers in the surrounding area, paying prices higher than what the farmers would receive if they sold the beans locally.  The beans for our bars are sourced from a handful of small family farms located in El Carmen, just down the road from the fermentary.

On our numerous visits to Matagalpa we've visited not only the fermentary but also the farms from which our specific beans are sourced.  We also worked with Giff to develop a custom fermentation profile, which highlights our favorite flavors in the beans.

We've also visited the El Recreo farm in Jinotega, where the Morales family provides education, housing and health care for their workers.

We freshly press the cocoa butter for this bar from the same El Carmen beans we use to make the chocolate, resulting in intense single origin flavor and exceptional smoothness.  We’re one of the only chocolate makers in the country to press our own cocoa butter, and it makes a world of difference in flavor.

For more information about the cacao beans we use to craft this bar check out our El Carmen page.

For more information on fine flavor cacao, our personal approach to direct sourcing and our unique chocolate making process please visit our Fine Cacao, Our Chocolate and Our Process pages.

Tasting notes:  Deep, rich and earthy.  Cocoa with caramel and raisin notes, infused with bright coffee flavor.

 Pairings:  For cheese pairing selections please visit our Tastings & Pairings page.