Take a bite and it will crack and break with a distinct sound. Appreciate its bouquet and notice how long it lasts. Eventually you will learn to distinguish between the subtle but rich notes from the South American Criollo cacao beans and the more full-bodied tones added by the Caribbean Trinitario beans, as they linger deliciously on your palate. While blending varieties of beans is a time honored tradition, exploring the use of a single type of cacao, as El Rey chooses to do, is a new frontier in chocolate making. The difference between great chocolate and what you see in most stores is like the difference between a great hearth baked bread and the spongy white stuff.
Great chocolate is about flavors.
The best chocolates start with Criollo or Trinatario cacao beans. As cacao content in chocolate goes up, the percentage of sugar usually goes down. Gourmet chocolates will always list their cacao percentage. Although there are basic characteristics that we associate with a particular variety of beans, the location where they are grown, and the way they have been cared for and processed, no two harvests or roasts are the same. To arrive at a pleasing sensational experience, one must have years of experience and the values we all associate with being the best.