Original Beans - Esmeraldas - 42% milk chocolate (Organic)

Esmeraldas is the milk chocolate in the Original Beans range: 42% cocoa, made with organic Arriba beans — the variety Ecuador also calls Nacional — from the Esmeraldas region on the country's Pacific coast. A pinch of salt goes into the recipe, and it is what stops the bar from reading as simply sweet.

How it tastes

Velvety, with caramel and hazelnut in front and red summer fruit behind them. At 42% there is a good deal more cocoa in it than a standard milk bar carries, so the cocoa still has a voice of its own; the salt sharpens the caramel rather than making the bar taste salty. The chocolate is conched for 16 hours, a long turn in the machine that grinds the particles fine and is where the texture comes from.

About Original Beans

Original Beans is a Dutch chocolate maker that buys its cocoa through its own sourcing team, looking for rare and authentic varieties rather than bulk cocoa — Taste the Rare and Preserve it, as the company puts it. Protecting the forest the cocoa grows in is part of that: the Esmeraldas beans come from the Pacific rainforest around the Mache Chindul Ecological Reserve, where Original Beans works with the growers.

At a glance

• Maker: Original Beans
• Type: milk chocolate
• Cocoa content: 42%
• Bean: Arriba (Nacional), organic
• Origin: Esmeraldas, Ecuador
• Conching: 16 hours
• Flavour: caramel, hazelnut and red summer fruit, with a pinch of salt