Everything the February pick of Hacienda San José gave us — fermented five days in cedar boxes, roasted eighteen minutes, and poured into exactly sixty moulds.
Tempered by hand across a marble slab, then poured while the crystal is still willing. Miss the window and the batch goes back to the melter.
A bar set in stable Form V crystal breaks with a clean, resonant crack and melts at 31.6 °C — a shade below body heat, which is why it disappears on the tongue.
Ripe red berry, toasted hazelnut, a soft molasses finish — cacao grown in the deep shade of the Chuao valley.
Ninety-one hours from raw bean to a bar that snaps — most of it spent waiting, on purpose.
Batch № 014 stops at sixty bars, numbered by hand on the wrapper. £14, shipped within 48 hours.