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8:46 am
August 6, 2006
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Four new 75g single origin bars from Valrhona will be available early September: Abinao (85% cocoa), Araguani (72% cocoa), Manjari (64% cocoa), Tanariva (33% cocoa, milk chocolate).
[url]http://www.chocolatetradingco.com/browsecategory.asp?ID=21[/url]
Araguani is one of personal Valrhona favorites but Abinao is new to me.
“Porcelana: The Holy Grail of Pure Criollos” (Maricel E. Presilla)
10:18 am
December 12, 2005
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Masur, I am sorry to say, but these bars Valrhona claims as single origin are actually blends. This is another example of let’s say wide interpretation of the word “single origin”. The site you linked says e.g. “Created from a blend of rare cocoa beans from Venezuela” for Araguani. In the same way Hershey could also call their new 60% dark bar “single origin” as the bars are also made of cocoa beans coming from a single origin: the African continent (or even from a single country, let’s say Ivory Coast…) Btw. I think in a short time this will also happen.
I am convinced these bars are heaven, but I am becoming really fed up with the use of these words that are in my opinion misguiding consumers. What do you think?
12:33 pm
March 17, 2005
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To be fair, single origin does not imply “no blending”.
Origin is wider then a “single plantation”, and even then who could claim that there wasn’t any blending? And Valrhona says that Gran Couva, Ampamakia and Palmira are their “single plantation” so far.
Certainly you’d expect also “single origin” not to be as big as a country, on the other hand.
And it’s a small consideration, but we haven’t seen the original Valrhona bar yet?
3:59 pm
December 12, 2005
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Yeah, sorry, I was exaggerating, you are right about the exclusion of blending and the single estate category.
Maybe with centuries an origin protection system (like AOC in France or DOC in Italy) will be implied in cocoa as it has been used for ages in the case of wine.
6:46 pm
March 17, 2005
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Would be nice – may be it will happen?..
7:37 pm
August 6, 2006
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I agree Domenico, words like single origin are too widely used.
Amdei Chuao is an example of DOC (The first and probebly the only in the world). Chuao was labeled DOC by the Venezuelan goverment.
“Porcelana: The Holy Grail of Pure Criollos” (Maricel E. Presilla)
