Last Sunday, as my dad worked tirelessly at configuring my new Macbook Air for the second weekend in a row and I sat on the deck talking with my mum, I suddenly remembered that most of my chocolate is stashed at their place under the air-conditioner. (My apartment is too hot in summer to safely store good-quality chocolate.)
Turns out I’d forgotten how much chocolate I have at my parents’ place. A travel-case and three smaller bags filled to the brim; chocolate as far as the eye can see! I was at first paralysed with indecision but, upon looking at Best Before dates, it became easy to choose a bar to review. June 2011? Koko Black’s Mexico 71% Dark Chocolate, come on down.
Koko Black Mexico 71% Dark Chocolate
My wonderful brother gave me this chocolate a long time ago, and it’s my first foray into Koko Black’s single origin chocolate range. The cocoa beans are Criollo, and the ingredient list is beautifully short: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin. Koko Black doesn’t even include vanilla here, clearly hoping the Mexican beans will shine all on their own.
And shine they did. The bar’s aroma is richly chocolate-y (always bodes well, seeing as how this is chocolate we’re talking about and all), with additional notes of tannin, raspberry, smoke, and maybe a little red wine.
I took a bite, and… subtle sweetness taken over by earthiness, a slight hint of freshly printed paper, lemon, a cooling quality, cream, dark smooth espresso threaded through with melted chocolate, no bitterness, no acidity, all richness.
I tremendously enjoyed this Koko Black Mexico 71% (vegan!) dark chocolate. The texture was silky-smooth, melting with a fudginess that ensured the flavour lingered on and on, strong yet complex, rich and seductive. Notes of claret, flourless chocolate cake, and something, something I couldn’t quite pinpoint, until I closed my eyes and there, there, in the smokiness, this chocolate:
It’s like the taste of cigarettes on someone’s lips as you kiss them in the blue-black night, but mixed with honey, and sugared almonds, and toffee. A little smoky, a little sweet, a little intoxicating, and maybe just a little bit illicit.
But that’s all I have to say about that.
Oh darn. I am giving up chocolate for a month! And I want this now!
*gasp* Say it isn’t so, Anh!
…Can I have all your chocolate then?
Ooh yikes, you’re getting all illicit on us ! Were I to taste cigs, I’d probably adopt a matronly tone and scold my kissee. But then again, this sounds so frightfully romantic, perhaps I wouldn’t.
I just saw this bar today on My Kugelhopf and the first thought to cross my mind was that I need to get my sh*t together and purchase some bars for you, and then request in a purty purty please but serious and perhaps forceful convincing manner that you somehow must finagle this bar and send it my way. Long sentence, eh.
While I would never be a pro-cigarette advocate, the idea that my writing made you consider not taking a scolding stance here has made my heart soar.
Oooh oooh! Yes yes! I could definitely get you this bar. And, in fact, I have three more eaten-not-yet-reviewed and three more neither-eaten-nor-reviewed Koko Black chocolates to go up on this blog eventually, so you could keep an eye out and then pick and choose your more heart-longing ones!
Wow … what a magnificent review of a chocolate bar … best review I have ever read.
Gosh, thanks Mike! (Out of all the chocolate reviews you normally read?
)
So romantically poetic. I want this chocolate. Now.
I’m off to raid Koko Black on Lygon St tonight I think
Oh Sophie, thank you! That means the world to me; I’m always terrified of my chocolate reviews seeming boring or silly
Did you end up at Lygon Street? 
Amazing, you collect/accumulate/hoard chocolates. If only the taste got better with age, or maybe it does to some extent?
To some extent… I must admit, I’ve had my fair share of chocolates where I’ve let them get beyond their expiry date and the taste has suffered. Sadface.
So many fantastic sounding flavours, all in one bar – not sure about the ‘freshly printed paper’ or the ‘taste of cigarettes’ though. Nonetheless I do believe I know where my lunch time walk is taking me today …
Yes, that’s most likely my mind being crazypants.
Oooh I like the thought of illict kisses – smoking or non-smoking – I’m not going to say no.
I love coming here on this Quitting Sugar thing I’m doing because a) I like to torture myself with looking at your food porn but also b)I really really like chocolate.
Oh yes, me too. The “thought” of illicit kisses. Just the thought.
(And I just deleted three further responses to you in a row, having remembered that this is rather a public forum…)
Teehee! I’m so, so glad you’re not avoiding my blog because of the IQS! Was a bit scared you might.
oooooo sexy
Whatever do you mean? It’s just a chocolate review.
Oooh. I’ve never even seen this flavour! Your review is poetic enough to make me want to find it
Also, multiple bags of chocolate??? I’m impressed
Do you have the single origins in your Koko Black? I’ve got two more to try out so far
Is it weird to admit that the amount of chocolate I have is overwhelming? But the best kind of overwhelming
P.S. Totally just opened your almond medallions, by the by…
I actually don’t know if we have single origins…but I’m always a bit distracted when I’m in the store so it’s entirely possible I’ve missed seeing a section of the range
Definitely the best kind of overwhelming. And I’m now realising how far back the stockpile extends, if the almond medallions are just surfacing. Even *more* impressive now
I hope you enjoy them!
My darling, it goes back far further than that
Yours only had a best before of December ’11! 
My workmate/friend Jenni is also very grateful to you for them 
would love to see your stash – and how you enjoy your new macbook (are you moving from mac to pc or are you a mac person through and through)
My family is born-and-bred Mac. My Dad has been staunchly Mac his whole life, i.e. back before it was cool, back when all my friends laughed at me from their PCs! My last notebook was a PC though, and oh am I ever glad to be back in macworld!
I was wondering because the first computer I bought was a mac which I had for quite a few years and then I went into the PC wilderness and in the last few years have returned to macs and am very pleased to be back!
Macs represent!
Wow Hannah, that bar both looks and sounds like perfection!
Thank you Alisa! And you want to know the best part? You didn’t go to spam!
Woohoo! I won’t hold my breath though. We’re moving in a few months, so I’m sure when the IP changes I’ll be back in spam. I hate/love akismet (depending on which side I’m on). I breathe in a different direction, and it knocks me back to spam. I’m such a naughty spammer
You’re my favourite spammer, Alisa. Hand over heart.
What a description! Me gusta!
Heh I have the opposite temperature problem at the moment – my cupboard is near the window and when it’s mighty cold, my chocolate sort of half-freezes and tastes quite unpleasant. Must find new storage spot.
Oh, the trials of climates that don’t take our poor dear chocolates into account! *pouts* That said, frozen chocolate is somewhat better than melted chocolate, at least when it comes to reviewing…
Oooh, the last paragraph is so racy!
Interesting to hear you compare chocolate to cigarettes- I’ve always thought that dark roast coffees taste like cigarettes and when I told my co-workers that at the coffee shop where I used to work, they thought I was crazy!
Your opinions are safe with me, Kate! People often talk of smoke/smoky notes in chocolate and coffee, so it’s not too far a stretch to move to ash and tobacco and cigarettes, surely.
And racy, moi? Why, I’m a Lady!
Ohhh the chocolate sounds so fantastic…I love dark chocolate and I LOVE Koko Black dark chocolate. I bought a bag full one year for valentines and made my own truffles with them. Was the best chocolates ever!
That sounds wonderful! I clearly need to keep eating up my Koko Black stash
Amazing given the inordinate number of times I have been to Koko Black, I am still yet to try any of their chocolate bars. Filled chocolates oh yes (give me those raspberry filled dark chocolate hearts any day of the week), but the bars no. If it weren’t for this darn rain that is sending me home to commune with the couch, I think I would be headed over there as soon as work finishes.
Despite my insatiable love for chocolate, there is no way I would give up snuggling on the couch with a book (in my world) for a trip to the shops, so I’m with you here, Lisa!
And hey, at least you’ve been to Koko Black an inordinate time and have had their chocolates! I’ve been once or twice, but have only ever had coffee 
I LOOOOVE Koko Black chocolate. Love.
Heidi xo
That’s the most beautiful piece of chocolate. I wanted to keep reading
Aw, thank you!
Hope we don’t get broken in to by the Choco-Burglar!
Bahahaha! I can’t believe this is the post you chose to comment on! I assure you, Dad, the last paragraph was purely hypothetical
And you better not! Maybe I should write a list of what I’ve got in stock to give to the insurance company, in case of a break-in? I’m sure it’s all worth a goodly amount…
“It’s like the taste of cigarettes on someone’s lips as you kiss them in the blue-black night, but mixed with honey, and sugared almonds, and toffee.”
Best. Ever. Turn it up, girl.x
You’ve filled my heart with happiness. Thank you, darling!
Wow that sounds like a sexay chocolate huh!
Like kissing a bad boy 
Teehee! You’ve got to kiss at least a couple of those in your life, right?
What a wonderful stock of delights you have waiting for you. I love Koko Black on those too rare visits to Melbourne or Canberra.
I do, Louise, I do indeed! And I have you to thank for that too
You chomped into a bar past its best before date! Haha… i guess it’s just a guideline anyway… Love that chocolates too have their single origins…. reminds me of my coffee obsession!
Are you honestly, honestly surprised that I’d do that?! Anyway, it’s a Best Before, not a Use By. Not like it’s going to become curdled like milk or anything
Teehee, yep, our twin obsessions!
Koko Black use Callebaut chocolate, so it’s nice to see that Callebaut are moving towards single bean chocolates. I still think that KB are overpriced for what they offer, though, which in this case is melted Callebaut in a block that doesn’t even have the KB logo on it…..
How interesting! I’ve never bothered to buy Koko Black myself (all I have on hand were gifts), so I didn’t know anything of this. I’ve never really thought highly of Callebaut, I must admit.
Loverly! Go Mexico!!
Oh, this one looks good.
I wanna kiss whomever you’ve been kissin’, missy.
P.S. You better get that out of your system soon, missy-yourself. You’ll be a kept woman soon
I love how you’ve just casually started with your dad working hard (for the second weekend in a row!) on *your* laptop, while you sat on the deck, chatting and eating chocolate. It’s a good way to arrange things, I think!
I was waiting for someone to call me out on that
To be fair, I spent the whole first weekend sitting there doing it with him and taking it all in! 
Slight tobacco breath is hot, in my opinion. But the lips of a packet-a-day smoker? Ugh. *thinks back to my first boyfriend who not only had bad smoker’s breath, but had cold jelly lips*
Oh, how is the Macbook Air? I’ve been thinking of getting one
I think “cold jelly lips” are going to give me nightmares. Serious, serious screaming nightmares.
I love it! So quick and small and pretty and wonderful
Wow. Um. Wow. Do you reckon Koko black is open now at 10:25pm…? Have a chocolate hankering that needs some fixin…
I reckon with your will and a few bobbypins/lock-cutters, it could be *open* for you at any time
I love your chocolate reviews – you write so well
This looks delicious and what a result to find an unexpected huge chocolate stash!
Thank you Eleanor! That means so much
Teehee, I just received *another* package of eight chocolate bars from my brother, which he bought for me in America. The stash just keeps growing!
Wow, Koko Black really should compensate you for such a rave review! It sounds devilishly devine!
Now wouldn’t *that* be lovely…
I want your taste buds Hannah as when I bought and tried a couple of their single origin dark chocolate, the only word I could find to describe them was ‘soapy’ and I have never tried chocolate that tasted soapy before. It was awful. Maybe the fact that yours were a gift full of kindness and mine were self-purchased makes the taste so much better?!
Ack, that sounds terrible! It must have been a bad/contaminated batch, surely. Which, come to think of it, isn’t really a great excuse to fall back on… I have a 100% still to taste and review that, let’s be honest, isn’t likely to be as palatable as this one, but at least I’ll go into it expecting that
It’s a treasure trove! Like the things-in-a-box Angle Babe! Wuhoo!!
I wish all my chocolate came from things-in-a-box!!!
i really want to try this dark chocolate! especially since it seems so pure and simple. can i get this in the US?
Unfortunately I’m pretty sure Koko Black is only in Australia so far, but don’t quote me on that!
FINALLY getting to read this post xxx
Teehee! Didja love it?
I love YOU
Aw, SQUISH!