El Rey - Gran Saman - 70%

Price $2.75 (USD) for 80g

Comparative Price $3.44 (USD) per 100g

Origin Venuzeula

Rating 3.5 stars

Buy again Possibly, powerful flavour at a good price but still confused about texture

El Rey is an interesting company; a family run Venezuelan business that differs from other companies by producing single origin chocolate using only beans from Venezuela, arguably the best cocao producing country in the world (certainly a region that I favour).

The packaging of this chocolate proudly displays a multitude of (potentially) good pedigree; Venezuelan, single origin and made from Carenero Superior.  El Rey means 'King' in Spanish and they claim that their chocolate is made with the King of cocao, i.e. the carenero bean (a trinatorio bean with a criollo background). 

This is their second darkest chocolate, El Rey only venture up to 73.5% but they also offer a number of other varieties at a semi-sweet level.

Sight

And this is a fine looking chocolate.  Perhaps I'm greedy but the first thing I notice is the rather generous sizing, not just how large each piece is but also its thickness.  So many chocolates are too thin and don't give me the sensual pleasure a wonderully generous wallop of chocolate does.

The chocolate has a red tinge to its otherwise mid-brown hue.  It is finished nicely with a good gloss and smoothness.  But the King is alive and El Rey have their logo (crown and all) proudly stamped on each piece - its all class at this stage.

However the actual packaging itself isn't anything exciting.  Not bad, just not exciting.  However it does present its various attainments of pedigree and what I do like, as a means to communicate to and educate the consumer, is they have information about themselves and more importnatly the origin of the cocao on the inside - a little read with my choccie, I like that.

Smell 

Wow!  This is one hell of an olfactory sensation, but in a good way.  A very rich and strong aroma although I detect a slight sweetness to it, it almost reminds me a little of the syrupy smell/taste from chocolate topping.  But aside from the syrupy memories of my childhood, there is much more to this aroma and its good!

Snap

A reasonable snap, I've certainly had better but it passes.  It just doesn't excite me with the resonance other chocolates offer.

Taste & Texture

El Rey promise a 'distinctive taste and aroma' so lets see how that goes...

Almost immediately the flavour starts to hit you and its strong - very strong.  But I am distracted by this from the texture which is unusual and quite coarse.  Is this intentional or accidental?

But moving on from texture for a moment I am trying to work this flavour out.  I've already mentioned that the flavour is strong but it isn't at all bitter, instead it has a tinge of sweetness and develops notes of sharp berries at times.  This is a proud and intense chocolate but it does at times attempt discreetness but I am not sure it works.  I get shy peeks of vanilla at times and maybe a little more prominent is the mild presence of spices that slightly warm the back of the palette.  However whilst these are pleasant they don't really deliver on complexity as much as I would like it to; but to be fair it does provide an unusually punchy, full flavour and little can compete with such robustness.

But I need to return to texture.  It melts very slowly, sometimes this isn't bad as it gives you time with the chocolate to get to know it so I can forgive this.  But I am still not sure about the coarse almost gritty texture.  What it remninds me of is that fine abrasavness you get from toothpaste if you don't rinse properly.  Now I hold up texture (particularly smoothness) as one of the highlights of good chocolate so this is an interesting development for me, but two other people (of varied chocolate standard persuasions) tasted this with me and loved the texture.  They likened it to being similar to liking nuts in chocolate. I don't necessarily get it but must admit I live in a democratic country and I've just been out-voted two to one.  I leave it up to you to decide.

So back to flavour, this punchy little chocolate keeps the hits coming and the flavour lingers strongly.  This is probably one of the most persistent chocolates I have eaten as far as maintaining a presence after the chocolate itself has gone.  And this is no dainty or discreet lingering, this is still punchy.  I hear about how good chocolate is meant to linger for up to 45 minutes and have always thought 'bollocks', if you'll kindly excuse the terminology, but maybe this is about to prove me wrong.  It's already been five minutes and its still delivering strongly.

The flavour at the end, and during the linger is strong but a lot sweeter and I'm back to my initial (aromatic) observation of chocolate topping.

Summary

This is a difficult one for me.  Gran Saman certainly has a lot to offer in taste and forcefullness but for me (still ignoring democratic principles) the texture distracts me.  I cannot reconcile myself to the coarseness and I am curious why it is there.

But, and there's always a but, this is a forceful flavour, a nice looking chocolate and is well priced so I feel compelled to take what it offers (or doesn't) and balance this against the humble pricing and as such rate it 3.5 out of 5. 

So whilst this offers a very good flavour I am still hung up on the compromised texture.  But if you don't mind that, and certainly two of my friends didn't, enjoy!  You might even find you love it, I certainly liked it.

http://www.chocolateselrey.com/home.html
(Purchased www.chocosphere.com)

3 December 2009
Reviewer: Shari