[HighFreqAsuka]

> Here’s what we’ve found out: It’s not about the cocoa-beans, but about the way they are treated during the manufacturing process.

I eat a lot of high end single origin chocolate bars, and I simply don’t believe this. Two bars from the same brand at the same percentage of cocoa content using different beans taste completely different. In exactly the same way as wine or coffee. It’s one of the most interesting parts of eating good chocolate. I just don’t believe this approach will ever replace my chocolate consumption, but may have a shot at the larger market of bad chocolate bars.

[Workaccount2]

What are some of you choice bars? Recently I tried a few single origin bars and was floored by how different they tasted amongst themselves, and how dramatically different they were to your run of the mill godiva or lindt.

[HighFreqAsuka]

Fruition is my entry recommendation. Every bar they make is good. Then Castronova, Goodnow Farms, Askinosie, Soma, and Dick Taylor. A good heuristic for evaluating a new brand is if the package tells you where the beans are from and if the ingredients list is “cocoa beans, sugar”.

EDIT: I realize you asked about bars not brands, but I’m in transit and brands was easier than individual bars. I’m a huge fan of the Askinosie orange bar in particular.

[mapt]

How much of this is variation between farms and how much is variations between batches? If the taste of every batch (a given farm's crop in a given season) were effectively random we would also see large variations from farm to farm. The theory are suggesting is that a given farm (or a given country, or a given brand) is long-term consistent and different from one another, but a double blind difference taste test at low N would be insufficient; You would need to test/quantify other forms of variation as well.

[colechristensen]

I'm likewise extremely skeptical, but I'd still like to taste it.

Maybe a replacement where chocolate isn't the main ingredient?