When you taste a range single origin chocolate bars, you can compare them and isolate the flavor characteristics of cacao beans from different places in the world, which is really fun. Over the past couple days, me and my office pals tasted two 70% bars made by micro-batch chocolate-maker Soma (see my previous post for more details). One of them was a blended bar, made of a mix of forastero cacao from Ghana and criollo cacao from Madagascar, and the other was a single origin, made of only forastero cacao from Ghana. (Forastero and criollo refer to the variety of cacao tree, kind of like cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon - both red grapes, but different varieties with different flavor profiles.)
The bar with the criollo beans starts out with notes of mild coffee and nuts and moves to pleasantly fruity/berry flavors right in the middle. Many other Madagascar origin bars that I've tasted have also exhibited dark berry fruitiness. The Ghana forastero was more on the earthy side and also a little less exciting than the blended bar. My office pals detected some fruit aromas, but not anywhere as strong as the blended criollo/forastero bar.
Forastero beans are known for being hardy, plentiful, but a little flat on the flavor side. The vast majority of the chocolate in the world is made with forasteros, which are the most common, and therefore the least expensive. Ghana produces the second biggest cacao crop in the world, and it's pretty much all forastero. (Ivory Coast is #1.) Criollos, on the other hand, are more prone to disease and more difficult to cultivate, and are therefore much more rare and expensive. However, they are also known for their big flavor and complex aromas, which makes them worth paying for - for some chocolate-makers. Less than 10% of the chocolate in the world is made with criollo beans.
Based on this tasting and several others I've done, I'm a pretty big fan of cacao from Madagascar. If I were going to do a single origin Madagascar tasting, this would be my line-up:
Valrhona Manjari 64%
Michel Cluizel Mangaro 65%
Amano Madagascar 70%
Domori Sambirano 70%
