One of my earliest blog supporters was the wonderful Louise, who found me through previously being a blog pal of my mother’s. In fact, I met Louise before I started blogging (such darkdark days) when she came to our place to have lunch during a visit to Canberra. Little did I know, that day, popping my head around the sliding door to say hello, that the fabulous woman smiling back at me would one day make my soul soar by sending me chocolate from her holidays in New Zealand and, as you’ll see today, the United States.
Thank you, Louise. You are a truly lovely friend.
Araya Artisan Chocolate Dark Chocolate Cayenne Pepper with Pecan and Lime Zest
After carrying out a little Internet research, I discovered that Araya Chocolate is an artisan chocolate company based in Katy, Texas, which makes all its innovatively-flavoured chocolates by hand. Lucky for me, Louise steered clear of Araya’s orange-flavoured chocolates, and instead picked out this bar with cayenne, lime, and pecans for me. Oh yes.
Araya’s cayenne pepper, pecan, and lime zest dark chocolate bar is a bucket of fun from the moment its aroma envelops you to the moment you whisper “no more?” whilst poking at the empty packet on your table. The aroma is woodsy, spicy, tangy, and sweet, and the chocolate’s flavour is vibrant and punchy.
The tang of lime zest hits at the first nibble, followed quickly by a definite sweetness and the buttery crunch of teeny-tiny pecan pieces. Then, just when you think you’ve experienced everything this bar has to offer, KAPOWZA. Cayenne pepper tickle-burns at the back of your throat. And so you eat another square, and another, because each flavour note is delightful and what can you say? You like the burn.
Redstone’s Old New Orleans French Roast Coffee and Cacao Nibs 72% Dark Chocolate
Louise was very selfless in sending me this Redstone’s Old New Orleans French Roast Coffee and Cacao Nibs 72% Dark Chocolate bar, because she abhors coffee herself and therefore isn’t likely to be swayed by me even if I do proclaim this chocolate to be tasty.
Spoiler alert: this chocolate was super tasty. So thank you, Louise, for thinking of my flavour preferences rather than your own. Coffee, cacao nibs, and dark chocolate? This chocolate was delicious in all the ways.
The aroma of Redstone’s 72% dark chocolate was like brownies and hot fudge sauce, all richness and loveliness, but with no hint of coffee. The taste was initially also all chocolate richness, strong in muscovado sugar, burnt toffee, and the delicious woodsy crunch of cacao nibs. Then, just at the end, the hum of espresso came through, and I smiled. In all the ways.
Scrumptious chocolate indeed. What’s better, this powered me through a Sunday afternoon of project report writing. Everybody wins! (Well, my work and I did.)
P.S. Thank you to everyone for your kind, and also stern, words following my last post. I’ve booked a relaxation massage this weekend; that’ll fix everything, right?
A relaxation massage doesn’t do anything to change your workload!
I’ve never heard of Araya, but they have a neat bunch of flavors! I’m most interested in the barberry one – I don’t want to eat it because it’s white chocolate, I’m just curious about it because I didn’t know barberries were edible. I thought they were just a terrible invasive.
I like how the color swirls like the B.T. McElrath bars:)
Hear hear! Workload must change too … but there’s no harm in a massage along the way
I’m also planning for a more hardcore attack-my-RSI massage in following weeks. I’m trying to help myself!
No, no it doesn’t. However, as my grandma says, “every mickle makes a muckle”.
Are barberries a pest/weed in your area? I’ve only ever come across dried barberries in American confectionary; I’m not sure they exist here. But I haven’t really bothered to look into that either
Two hits! Awesome! Both sound incredibly good and look really homemade, which I mean as a compliment to them.
No scary ingredients in the chocolates, either. So much win!
Spicy chocolate is my favorite chocolate. I love the idea of using lime with it!
Good for you taking some R&R time. Enjoy it!!!
damn. now craving chocolate and its not even 9am
That would make it almost 7pm in New York. Chocolate time!
ohhh I love the swirls on the Araya Chocolate! I used to think that spiced chocolate tasted weird but I recently found out that I was WRONG! They’re the best thing ever
(well, besides salted chocolate) hehe
Bahahaha! Being able to admit when you’re wrong is one of the clearest signs of growing up, particularly when the mistake was about chocolate. I’m pretty sure Plato said that.
I want the one with nibs…. coffee+ nibs would totally = a happy Lou.
Hope you get a break from this crazy work schedule, you poor thing! I basically make it from my pajamas to my yoga clothes and then back to pajamas each day, I can’t imagine having to go to WORK again, ick. Man I love being a stay at home Mama…. hehehe works for me because I am lazy!
Darlin’, I don’t think anyone could look at how much of your life’s energy goes towards looking after Misty and keeping him entertained and ever call you lazy! More like a superwoman. But heavens, oh me oh my, sometimes it seems very unfair to me that we single women can’t be stay-at-home-mamas too. Hmph.
The swirls are so beautiful my friend! These chocolates both seem like a real treat! What a great friend you have
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
How lovely to have a blogging friend sending you wonderful blocks of chocolate like these. I love how dense and dark they look. And re my comment on your last blog. Sorry to have sounded so intrusive. I didn’t mean for you to have to spill the beans re your job all over your blog. Maybe one day when I’m down in Canberra we can have a coffee (or some dense dark chocolate) and you can tell me all about it. I do hope the massage repairs all the end results of being over-tired and over-worked. xx
Oh darling, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel like you were being intrusive! Not at all! I’ve actually just gone back to read my reply because I couldn’t remember what I wrote (I actually can’t really remember anything from June 10th onwards right now). And now I see/remember – my comment there was actually a message to myself; I originally wrote a rather lengthy reply to you and then deleted it because, well, this is a public forum, and sometimes I need to remind myself that I can’t talk about specifics here when my identity is very public.
I would love to have coffee and chocolate with you one day. Let’s lock it in for an as-yet-to-be-decided time. xo
Coffee, cacao nibs, and dark chocolate do sound divine!
Good to hear that things are better
Cayenne pepper, pecan, and lime zest dark chocolate? Oh, yes please. What a gorgeous flavour combination! I like Araya as a name too…not that that is a particularly important or relevant thing, but it has added to my love of this chocolate company I had never previously heard of
I’m glad to hear about the massage too! And that you had these on hand for Sunday work.
I’m about 97.8% sure that your subconscious likes the name Araya because it’s very close to Arya and, at least as far as I’m up to in the series, she’s an awesome character.
(Silly Sansa…)
*Laughs* Entirely possible
Mmmm…that coffee, cacao nibs, and dark chocolate sounds like my ideal lover and I would make sweet, sweet love to that….ahem…
Relaxation massage sounds wonderful and it is truly deserved – just enjoy it and don’t think about anything else. I’m glad you have booked that in.
Thanks Sig
I normally go for the more intense-pound-jab-out-my-RSI-aches massages, but hopefully this one can help in a more “calming” way.
Love the cayenne pepper flavored one! Oddly, I just got some pink peppercorn variety and it was eeewwwwwww.
Bahaha, did you read my review of the Vosges Amalfi pink peppercorn chocolate, where I said it made me feel sick because it reminded me of steak with peppercorn sauce? So I get you
New Orleans chocolate?!! Did it taste like Jazz? It looks mighty delicious. I cannot wait to go to New Orleans one day.
Heidi xo
Oh, you must, you must!! Have I ever blogged the photos of me on a bayou tour, holding a teeny tiny baby alligator and then an older baby alligator the length of my arm? And beignets! And JAZZ! You must go
xo
relaxation massage??? I thought chocolate fixed everything!!!
In my imaginary world when I imagine I might get to taste these I think I would prefer the lime – I think it is the shame the coffee one tastes rather than smells of coffee – I quite like the smell of good coffee but not the taste
I think, because I eat chocolate several times every single day, it doesn’t quite have the magical restorative powers for big-scale stresses like this. It’s more… just something I have to have to function.
I completely understand liking the smell of coffee rather than the taste. I, for example, love the smell of fruity-berry herbal teas, but they always taste unpleasantly sour to me.
OK I’m going to sound really stupid here but I’ve never seen chocolate from Texas before!
That clearly means you need to sort out a blog trip to Texas then
Want them both. And I would have GLADLY eaten Araya’s orange flavours too!
And I would GLADLY have given them to you!
I already love the look of that chocolate! I also think I’d appreciate woody flavor.
Now that is what I call proper chocolate! I would love to try some. It looks so good.
Excellent write-up! We think you must be one of the few bloggers left who really describe the eating sensation in words, as well as in photos. Very envious – the idea of New Orleans chocolate brings up beauutiful images!
Oh, thank you! Your comment means so much to me, because it is the writing that I love (DSLRs and fancy photography scares me).
And oooh, your blog is so much fun! Dessert dessert dessert, the greatest of all the things!
That was sneaky of you to eat these while we were away and you were house sitting. I didn’t even see any little samples left behind for us … Or have you hidden them. We’re back now so you can tell us where they are!
I just baked you macaroons, woman! And soup! Quit yer whingin’!
Hope you had a lovely relaxing weekend and enjoyed that massage! Sounds like you really needed it. It’s important to take the time to chill out when life gets really busy. And you’ve got some lovely sounding chocolate to help you!
I’m so glad that they were both good- it’s always a bit nerve wracking when you give away chocolate that you haven’t tasted- although I know you love the thrill of the new, and the endless search for chocolate perfection. And I’m even more glad that they helped you get through some work projects, and I’m sure the massage did too. I had some cacao nibs this very night actually- I had a Josophan’s Dark Chocolate with Cacao Nibs, Cinnamon and Vanilla that I bought up at Leura on the weekend. I’m still not all that convinced on cacao nibs you know. I’m happy to still give them the occasional go of course, in the pursuit of science and wisdom naturally.
Oh Louise, you’ve shown utter perfection in your ability to choose chocolates for me, so I tip my hat to you! The massage was nice, but I think the chocolate helped the most, particularly as the chocolate didn’t cause my hair to stick out a metre past my head afterwards…
Holy phwoar those cacao nibs sound incredible!! I applaud your ability to keep trying. I’ve occasionally thought of doing so with orange chocolate myself, but alas! I still can’t even get past the aroma.