Rausch Tembadoro

Here’s another one of Rausch’s distinctively long, thin bars from their ‘Plantation’ range, and this one is the Daddy, with 80% Trinidadian cacao.

The ‘Plantation’ range first saw the light of day about twelve years ago, and you’re unlikely to find them in the UK I’m afraid (mine were bought on a holiday trip) but if you’re on the Continent there’s a very good chance they’ll be lurking on a supermarket shelf somewhere.

It’s a bit of a rare beast in terms of origin. We see so much cacao from South America but very little from the Caribbean. Small island producers tend to sell to the higher end, more exclusive chocolate makers (or in the case of Hotel Chocolat, they just grow for the company). I don’t recall ever having eaten much Trini cacao before.

Despite it’s hefty cacao percentage, the chocolate has a surprisingly mild flavour. There’s no getting away from the distinctive, earthy texture and mouth feel that high percentage cacao chocolate has, and some people do find that grainy, slightly coarse texture off-putting but happily this is one of the smoothest high-cacao bars I’ve eaten in a long time.

The characteristic ‘graininess’ of high cacao chocolate is evident to some extent but overall I was very impressed with how smooth and light it was texturally. The Trinidadian cacao has a good depth of flavour and a long finish. Overall, very impressive and certainly good enough to put Trinidadian cacao on my radar – I shall be keeping an eye out for more chocolate made with beans from the island.

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