Quiet Water, Clear Flavor
Goodnow Farms' Ucayali 70% earns its balance the slow way: by boat.
By Priya
The cacao for this bar travels by river before it reaches the chocolate maker. Farmers along the Ucayali, one of the Amazon's major headwaters in Peru, grow several varieties of fine-flavor cacao and bring their harvest by boat to Ucayali River Cacao, where the beans are fermented and dried at a dedicated facility. That careful handoff shows in the bar. Four members have scored it at 3.50 squares, and the maker describes it as extremely well balanced, floral and herbal, with lemon verbena and fig. Those are not loud notes. Lemon verbena sits at the edge of citrus and green tea; fig adds weight without sweetness that crowds everything else out. The 70% cacao keeps the whole thing grounded. This is a bar that asks you to slow down, not because it is subtle to the point of faint, but because there is more to find if you do.
