So let’s exclude the idea of  ’porcelana’ from our minds and review the bar for what it is, chocolate made with the native cacao of Peru.

As usual, Bonnat bars are still 100 grams, a good chunky size that few other high chocolate makers still use.

The colour of the chocolate is brown with vivid burgundy hints, shiny and perfectly made in Bonnat’s traditional mould.

Tobacco and unlit match-head are strong in the aroma, but with definite floral hints – faint rose, mango and something like over-ripe fruit or perhaps papaya.

The taste has full fruitiness leaning towards apricot and lychee, with underlying brown sugar and malt, passing through a creamy burst. The fruit though leans towards overripe, with too much ‘yellow’ fruits and a slight underlying mustiness, suggesting fermentation issues. To cope with this, Bonnat has set the roast fairly high, which contributes to a bitter background note, noticeable especially in the length.

The mouth in the early stages is pleasant, balanced by the fruit, but tips off a little towards the end, when Bonnat’s typical high-cocoa butter content really becomes noticeable. Though the flavour while eating went on some interesting dancing fruit and floral explorations, the after taste is much less exciting. Fading of into faint lactic milk.

In my eyes Bonnat’s other Peruvian, Piura, is far cleaner and superior, and this seems to be the general opinion from Bonnat as well. An interesting bar to eat, but – in the case of this batch at least – does not reach the heady heights others have found.

Valrhona makes few mistakes in the visual area; none here of note. Indeed, eliminating the sculptural “artistry” of the old for the reassuring slab-shaped bar of the new makes for an improvement, and the temper shows off better, even if the colour is, perhaps, slightly darker than one might expect for a Porcelana bean. Indeed, the aroma is most un-Porcelana-like, at least as we have come to expect; instead, it’s pungent and spicy, with a mixture of pepper and clove. There’s a complementary hint of cedar-like wood, and in fact additional hints of citrus and raisin make it a very balanced aroma indeed…except for a very worrisome rubbery hint.

In fact, this rubbery hint carries over into the flavour, but only momentarily, not long enough to ruin it before the taste shifts to calmer vanilla and cocoa, then gradually grows more assured, prune and treacle suddenly emerging powerfully with hints of liquorice and coffee. The finish ultimately rescues the start and makes this a satisfying chocolate ultimately. It’s not quite as satisfying texturally, though, as Valrhonas of ages past; being moderately smooth but slightly dry. No disasters but not the effortless melt Valrhona had long had.

In the intervening years something HAS happened: Valrhona have made a dramatic style change. From being a company whose style had always been bright and refreshingly fruity, here they seem to be drifting into the Amedei style of dark, treacley chocolate. One wonders whether Valrhona is consciously or unconsciously modifying their style in the wake of Amedei’s public success. Here however there’s also something else going on. That rubber hint suggests that the fermentation, at least on this batch, was poor, and a darker, more “Amedei-like” roast might to some extent be mitigating it. There is the feeling here of a batch rescued from the brink: this is a very good chocolate, but clearly flirting with disaster. Overall it can’t be said to be a substantial improvement on the Porcelana del Pedregal, even if it’s not any worse, but Valrhona have some work to do in supplier control and process management if they are to perfect what should be their signature chocolate.

Aroma is nuts, tobacco, spice, overlain with raisin and strawberry fruit notes and a hint of rose. Clean, crisp, light cream and slightly nutty, and chocolate of course.

The flavour is definitely full and fruity, (‘ripe fruits’, just as Valrhona describe), plus hints of merlot and a distinctive tang in the after taste. Spice hints push it towards mulled wine. Close your eyes though and think of nut paste or gianduja and you’re a lot closer to the classic porcelana signature. There’s a certain, but not unpleasant oilyness and the edge of bitterness you get with good hazelnuts. In the background hovers a dark hint of Laphroig. With time in the mouth the fruit slowly rises up, finishing on nutty cream. At the end an oh so slight hint of ash.

Length is long and stable – light cranberry juice with a nut background.

This is good and interesting and a great chocolate to eat, with some fantastically complex notes and a great, balanced aroma. It has perhaps though not yet reached the heady heights we’d expect from the varietal, lacking that ultimate hint of magic, but this is the first proper year of this new vintage. Let’s hope for even better in the future. Given the recent tailing off of Palmira – the Venezuelan vintage that this bar replaces – it’s a step in the right direction.

One thing is for sure though, this is a much, much better and more accomplished chocolate than the original pentagonal presentation box from 2005, weird and fun as that was.

El Pedregal is a rarity in another way – a cacao plantation actually owned by a chocolate maker. Despite the impression some companies may give, you could actually count the number of these in the world on a few fingers. Most cacao is bought from traders, cooperatives, exporters and occasionally big organised producers.

The original Del Pedregal box

Although Valrhona have owned this plantation for twenty years, their first version of Pedregal came out only in 2005/2006. This was perhaps though too soon. The chocolate was interesting, but didn’t quite live up to the hype or match up to the standard of the current Valrhona vintages.

For this reason, perhaps, the chocolate was only available in very fancy pentagonal boxes, with two layers of moulded chocolate, laid out in the shape of a cacao flower. This was all very fancy, but unsurprisingly not sustainable as a product.

Back now in a standard bar format, El Pedregal begins to live up to the hype, replacing the former Venezuelan offering in the Vintage bar range, Palmira.

It is great that Mast Brothers never add anything to the chocolate. They use only the beans and sugar. This takes a lot of risk. Difficult to mould, not a very nice look, because the chocolate is thik. For this reason the moulding is not perfect. The snap is not as a chocolate with added cocoa butter, but always nice. Other risks are the taste and the melt.
Not only that the chocolate smells wild, earthy, fruity and also fermented. The aroma is similar. Grapefruit, red berry, fermantation, citrus fruits, raisins, cedar, peat (earthy) and much more, but almost indefinable. The aroma and the taste stay longtime in the mouth.

All this aroma you can taste with a hint of tannin/adstringency and a well present acidity. Normally I don’ t like chocolate with adstringency and too acid, but here it works perfectly. The chocolate is for 72% cocoa solid (only cocoa mass!) unexcepted sweet and with a great harmony.

The melt is not great, but not too sticky. Without added cocoa butter only few chocolatiers control this point. And I think that the Mast Brothers don’ t have enough experience and equipment to control this.

I know that this chocolate is far to be perfect. This is not an overstyled chocolate for the masses. This is not an ordinary Madagascar-chocolate. This is not a chocolate for mass production. This is not a chocolate for people who don’ t like dark chocolate. They would never again try any dark chocolate. This is a chocolate for real chocoholics. With a lot of unexpected flavours from Madagascar beans. No other chocolatiers bring out this flavours.
I hope that this batch of this chocolate is not only a one time wonder and that the other batches are comparable in the style and quality.

Look/snap
The bar from 2011 was changed to organic and away from 100g to 70g. I like this size and the thin chocolate. The chocolate is mittle dark brown and looks good, the snap nice.

Aroma
The aroma starts fruity with apricot and very light sour red berries than goes to liquorice and green olive to come back to the fruity notes. The added vanilla do not disturb and accompanied very, very light the chocolate. Only at the finish you can taste a little bit the vanilla.

Taste
The taste is mild and smooth. The aroma of fruits is well accompanied of the sweetness, but also from a certain bitterness. The balance of sugar and cocoa solid is very good.

Melt
Also Michel Cluizel add no lecithin, but cocoa butter to his chocolate. The melt is in this case not perfect, a little bit sticky.

Length
After tasting this chocolate you keep smiling.

Opinion
This chocolate is one of the best chocolates made from beans from Dominican Republic and from Caribbean beans. It would be great to taste this chocolate without added vanilla. I am curious to see if and how it would change the taste.

Look/snap
The bar is not so light as usual for Madagascar-cocoa. The finish of the moulding is very nice. No bubbles, mate shiny and with a nice snap.

Aroma The aroma is on one hand typical for Madagascar cocoa, but on the other hand Patric reveal an unusually side of this cocoa. Mainly red berries and citrus fruits, but also molasses, raisins and light coffee. The light roasting flavours are very pleasant.

Taste
Directly with the first bite you can taste the powerfull fruitiness of the Madagascar-cocoa with a perfect balanced sweetness, accompanied from a light acidity. In the mittle you taste molasses, raisins and light coffee. At the end you can taste again the fruitiness and the acidity comes back with a little bit tannin/adstringence. You can taste very good the cocoa and it is great that Patric do not add any vanilla.

Melt
The melt is very fast and smooth, perhaps a little bit too fast.

Length
When the chocolate disappears the aroma of the cocoa and not only the chocolate taste remain in your mouth.

Opinion
This bars is hight end quality and a very good example of a good Madagascar-chocolate.
67% cocoa solid is almost perfect for a Madagascar cocoa. Only the high content of added cocoa butter could be reduced.
It is a soft, fruity and delicatd chocolate.

Aroma
According to Amano I should taste citrus, raspberry, balsamico vinegar and raisins. Mostly that I taste is vanilla. This chocolate is hopeless over flavoured. In contrast to other dark chocolates from Amano, this one is still as horrible as in 2007.

Look/snap
Light dark colour as typical for a chocolate made with beans from Madagascar. Very nice look and snap.

Taste
Here the chocolate could be a winner. It starts with the typical citurs flavour, a little bit tobacco, earthy. But after a few seconds the vanilla taste overshadowed too much the other flavours of the cocoa. At the end, the main taste that remains is… vanilla.
I really don’ t understand why so much chocolatiers add vanilla to chocolate, especially to single origin chocolate. Where is the sense to produce a single origin chocolate, if I falsify the aroma and taste with vanilla? When I buy a single origin chocolate I want to taste the pure cocoa of the origin and not any other flavours of added ingredients. Already added cocoa butter can change very much the original taste of the cocoa, but vanilla really change the original taste. Particularly when they add so much vanilla as Amano.
The cocoa content of 70% is good. I think that Amano add a lot of cocoa butter to control the acid of the Madagascar-cocoa.
But even with this the chocolate is sour and has a light tannin/adstringence. Both are ok, because they are not too much and representative for Madagascar-cocoa.

Melt
The melt is very good and I suppose that this comes mostly from the added cocoa butter. But I like this kind of melt.

Length
Nobody will be surprise; The length is almost only vanilla taste, but in total ok.

Opinion
This chocolate is a dissapointment in aroma and taste, because over flavoured with added vanilla. In total it is not at all a bad chocolate, but only if you are a vanilla junkie you can enjoy this bar.
Amano does not learned about making (Madagascar) chocolate in the last years and I fear that I will never be a supporter of his products.
I am very confused to see how much awards Amano wins with his chocolates. What a mysterium…

The beans used for this chocolate comes from the Millot plantation. I had the chance to visit this plantation several times. The beans, a mixture of Trinitario and Criollo beans, are carefully treated and in contrast to other producers further washed.

The look is brown and lightly red due to the typical lightly red beans from Madagascar. The chocolate is therefore and due to the low cocoa mass content not dark as a usually dark chocolate. Due to the very professional equipment of Valrhona the look is almost perfect and the snap great.

The chocolate smells clean, fruity and with notes of spices.

The taste is Madagascar-like. Lime, mango, peach and spices, especially vanilla. But the vanilla-taste is not usually for Madagascar-cocoa. It comes from the added vanilla. The added vanilla is unnecessary, the cocoa has enough character and the added vanilla falsified a little bit the pure character of the cocoa. The roasting is not too strong to taste.

Due to the high cocoa butter content is the lenght not perfect.

The Ampamakia still satisfies the expectation to a Madagascar-chocolate, but Valrhona could make it better. The cocoa solid is in combination with the high cocoa butter content a little bit too low for a chocolate made with Madagascar beans. This makes the chocolate too sweet. They should reduce the cocoa butter, increase the cocoa mass and the cocoa solids up to 66-67%. The added vanilla disturbs the enjoyment of this still great chocolate a little bit. Valrhona should not add any vanilla to this chocolate.

In total is the Ampamakia still the incarnation of Madagascar cocoa for me and one of my favourite chocolates, but others chocolatiers treat the Madagascar-cocoa as well but with better recipes. Ampamakia is not any more the best Madagascar-chocolate in the world, but still one of the best.

As one might expect, the colour is very light indeed, certainly relative to roasted chocolates, and while Pacari has always been a little less than obsessive about appearance, this one doesn’t look overly distorted – and certainly there aren’t any marks of real trouble in tempering and moulding. Aroma is actually surprisingly dark, hinting at blackberries and brown sugar in the way a “typical” Ecuadorian chocolate might. However an utter contrast of citrus and vinegar is entirely unlike typical Ecuadorean chocolates – and shows what we might be missing, other than here. A few woody traces also demonstrate what raw chocolate leaves in, namely the tannins that can make a chocolate great or simply bitter.

Flavour is like an explosion in a fruit-packing factory, with raspberries and redcurrants competing for attention. However, a subtle creamy modulation prevents the chocolate from just becoming sour, and indeed the flavour flows convincingly towards the sort of smooth, earthy coffee notes one might expect of a roasted bar. Can this really all be coming from raw chocolate?

Texturally the bar is good, although it doesn’t rank with the best of the European manufacturers. But with chocolate this good, those differences seem neither here nor there. This is a demonstration of definitive fermenting and conching techniques at their ultimate, and makes a case for the idea that roasting is perhaps an utterly superfluous step.