Krak Chocolate - Belize Peini - Dark Chocolate

This bar is 70 percent dark chocolate, made with cocoa beans from Punta Gorda (Peini) in the Toledo district, Belize. One bar weighs 80 grams.

At 70 percent you clearly taste the cocoa itself: less sweet than milk chocolate, but not as severe as a bar with 100 percent cocoa. If you want to taste the character of the origin properly, let a piece melt slowly on your tongue instead of chewing it.

The cocoa comes from Punta Gorda (Peini), Toledo district in Belize. Peini Plantation has been growing its own cocoa on 96 hectares of land since 2016 and also buys cocoa from local farmers through sister company Belize Cacao Trade.

Together with the Na'Lu'Um Cocoa Institute, an association of local Maya cocoa farmers, thousands of young trees have been handed out free of charge and farmers receive training and microfinancing. As a result, around 204 cocoa producing families have a steady outlet at a fair price.

Post harvest processing is done centrally: the beans ferment for seven days in boxes made of Santa Maria wood and then dry on wooden drying tables, where they are raked regularly.

The ingredients of this bar are of organic origin. The packaging shows the code NL-BIO-01, the identifier of the organic certification body responsible.

Would you like the full list of ingredients or information about allergens? Then always check the packaging itself, because that is what counts.

Krak Chocolade is the company of chocolate maker Mark Schimmel. Bean to bar means that he does the whole process himself: selecting the cocoa beans by harvest year and by origin, roasting them and refining the chocolate.

Most chocolatiers work with melted industrial chocolate. Because Krak does everything itself, you get flavours you will not find in supermarket bars. The bars are made and packed in the Netherlands.

Store the bar cool, dry and dark, preferably at around 15 to 18 degrees and well sealed. Do not put chocolate in the fridge: the temperature difference and the moisture make the bar bloom white and turn the texture grainy.

Has the chocolate got too warm after all and set again with a grey haze? Then it is still perfectly edible, only the shine and the snap are less good.