review

Review: Durci 70% Ecuadorian Chocolate

Durci 70% Dark Chocolate Bar
~ Amber Latner ~ 3 Comments

 

Thank you Choco Rush for introducing me to Durci, a fantastic new chocolate maker from the great state of Utah. Durci’s 70% Corona Arriba bar is made with the renowned Nacional heirloom cocao variety grown in Ecuador.

This particular bar is the most floral chocolate I’ve ever tasted. This may sound totally obnoxious, but the best way to describe the taste of this bar is to say that eating it is like stepping into a flower garden. The delicate, perfumey flavor reminds me of… roses. Or violets, maybe?

It was my husband who finally nailed it: the chocolate tastes like orange blossom water. He’s right. The Corona Arriba bar’s unique taste is strongly suggestive of the aromatic flavoring agent in my mother’s favorite cocktail, the uber-indulgent Ramos Gin Fizz.

If you’re hosting a chocolate tasting and want to include a floral chocolate in the mix, I recommend this one, hands down. You can order it on the Durci website or from the “Chocolate Collection” on Cococlectic.

Note: I noticed Durci is currently offering a special on their website– $45 for a sampler pack of six Durci bars from different origins. That’s about $9 less than you would pay for the six individual bars — a pretty good deal if you’re interested in trying out a fantastic new American bean-to-bar chocolate maker.

Review: Chococurb’s Nano Subscription

Seattle Chocolate's birthday cake confection
~ Amber Latner ~ 2 Comments

I have something awesome to share with you today.

One of my (other) favorite chocolate delivery companies, Chococurb, has a brand new offering that, as far as I know, is unique among the competion: a MINIBAR delivery service. Dubbed the Nano subscription, each delivery contains five minibars for $10. $10!! That’s the price of one Mast Brothers chocolate bar in some cities.

Here’s how it works. You either buy one shipment for $10, or a 6-month or 1-year subscription for slightly less. Each shipment contains five chocolate samples, each of which weigh between 0.2 and 0.9 oz (at least in the shipment I received). Which means you are basically paying $10 for 2 oz of chocolate. Which admittedly is a lot. But you get to sample five new hard-to-find chocolate makers for the price of one Mast Brothers bar. And shipping is included.

This may give you a better sense of the size of the bars:

I think the Nano subscription is a great deal*. Especially for lazy people like me who are happy to pay an extra few bucks to sample lots of hard-to-find chocolate brands without leaving the house.

I also think it’s a great idea from the Chococurb team. As far as I know, Choco Rush, Cocoa Runners and Cococlectic aren’t offering comparable minibar subscriptions — at least, not yet.

Btw, the 6-month and 1-year subscriptions make great gifts. And if someone close to you isn’t a chocoholic (which, frankly, I would find hard to believe), well… it was my birthday last week. Just sayin.

*UPDATE 8/19/16*

Get 10% off your Nano box subscription until September 19th by using the discount code INTEMPER at checkout.

Review: Choco Rush Chocolate Delivery Service

Choco Rush logo
~ Amber Latner ~ 7 Comments

A while back I reviewed two chocolate delivery services I’d tried, Cocolectic and Cocoa Runners. Well, today I have an entirely new chocolate delivery crush: Choco Rush.

Choco Rush is a craft chocolate subscription service out of South Carolina. But… who really cares where they’re based. Let me get to the point: Choco Rush totally rocks.*

Why all the love?

For starters, my first shipment included bars from three chocolate makers I’d never even heard of before, let alone tasted. So major props to them for promoting unsung chocolate makers that don’t yet have a national presence.

Another cool thing: the chocolate curators behind Choco Rush clearly have awesome taste, because two of the chocolate bars in my first shipment were blow-my-mind delicious (made by Durci and Hello Cocoa — find them!!)

Actually there is a third reason to love Choco Rush, now that I think about it, and it’s a really important one. Their customer service is outstanding!

It’s hard to understate how much this matters. If you sign up for one of these delivery services and live anywhere that sees temperatures over 85 F (which is pretty much everywhere right now), at some point you’ll probably find yourself emailing customer service to report some kind of melted chocolate shipping disaster. At Choco Rush, Chris Lacey was incredibly responsive and helpful when I was concerned about my shipping arriving on a particularly hot day (I needn’t have worried — the chocolate arrive unmelted and unbloomed, even in our lovely 95 F D.C. weather).

But what really hooked me on Choco Rush was how genuinely interested Chris seemed in my feedback on the chocolate bars they’d sent me. This is the fourth chocolate delivery service I’ve tired, but it’s the first to reach out to me directly to ask what I’d thought of their chocolate. And being a total chocolate nerd, I loved the opportunity to bounce my tasting notes off an expert who is friendly, knowledgeable and unpretentious. It reminded me once again what a great, welcoming community the chocolate world is.

OK, so here are the subscription details:

  • Each Choco Rush shipment includes four bars from different chocolate makers, shipped at the beginning of every month (so if you sign up for the service on the second week of the month, you’ll have to wait until the next month for your first shipment).
  • Their subscription choices include a month-to-month package for $39 ($9.75/bar), a 3-month subscription for $110 ($9.17/bar), plus a couple of longer subscriptions.
  • You can skip a month or cancel your subscription at any time, and shipping is free in the U.S.

I know $9+ is steep for chocolate, but remember your money is supporting small batch chocolate makers with relatively high overhead compared to large industrial chocolate producers. Plus they often pay direct trade prices (more expensive than fair trade) for their cocoa beans. So I think it’s money well spent.

But the real reason I think it’s worth it to pay $9/bar for chocolate is that Choco Rush takes both the legwork and guesswork out of finding awesome new chocolate makers. Not only will you be introduced to chocolate makers you’ve never heard of before, but the bars you receive will probably be delicious. For me, that alone make the service worth the premium.

Note: I am not a spokesperson for Choco Rush and didn’t receive payment (or free chocolate) for writing this. The views expressed below are mine alone.