Erithaj – Ben Tre 65% Dark Chocolate

Description

This bar is a limited edition release from Vietnamese craft chocolate maker Erithaj.

The chocolate in this bar was originally conceived of as a couverture, for use as single origin chocolate in chocolate making.  It’s rich flavour profile made it the ideal base for a ganache.  While it makes for a fantastic ingredient, this chocolate is so wonderful in its own right that Erithaj decided to release it as a bar.

Crafted from cacao from the Ben Tre province, this cacao has undergone a special fermentation process, which gives it its unique fudgy yet fruity quality.

Located 85km south of Saigon, the province of Ben Tre is famous for the coconut. It is also where cocoa farming was revived in Vietnam around the year 2000.  This province is rich in fruit trees (coconut, banana, longan, durian, jackfruit, …) and the region of Ben Tre provides excellent vegetation cover for the cultivation of cocoa.

The cocoa farms are small holdings, in a very literal sense – they are individually managed by  families and, on average, they do not exceed 1.5 hectares. The cacao in this region is usually grown under the shade of coconut palms, in biodiversity with other fruit trees.  The farmers in this region have an especially innovative way of letting nature take the lead in the fight against cacao parasites – they use ant colonies on the branches to help to fend off certain parasites.