Utopick – Lachuá, Guatemala 70% Dark

Description

The vibrant azures of lake Lachuá are matched in the intensity of this 70% dark chocolate bar. You’ll immediately notice a fantastic melt: pop it in your mouth and you’ll notice how smoothly and evenly it dissolves, giving way to a delightful mouthfeel. Expressions of red berry join with unmistakable liquorice notes, evocative of the spices also grown in the national park reserve surrounding the lake. This is Utopi(ck)a  in a bar.

The beans for this bar began their journey in the north of Guatemala, in the tropical rainforests located in the natural park that surrounds the pristine paradise of the cenote lake Lachuá. This is a bountiful region, also producing harvests of fragrant cardamom and coffee. When it comes to the cacao, there is a particularly rich range of varietals, with trinitario, amelonado, forastero and some nacional beans selected for this bar. The Q’eqchi’ Maya families that live in the region cultivate cacao beans in a rigorous Transparent Trading model, which secures prices for the cacao for producers that are even higher than Fair Trade, whilst ensuring responsibility and accountability at every stage of production.

A bean-to-bar chocolate adventure is the product of a life time of culinary devotion for Valencia based chocolatier Paco Llopis. The son of patissiers at the helm of the Valencia institution Pastelería Llopis in Alzira, Paco’s initiation into the realms of confectionery was a somewhat magical one, living above the kitchens of the family business providing a constant and immersive source of experimentation and inspiration. It wasn’t long before his attention turned to chocolate, eventually becoming a master chocolatier with a truly impressive professional trajectory including the kitchens of some of Europe’s most prestigious restaurants and chocolateries. Paco’s mission is simple: to create the best and most surprising chocolates that have ever been. It’s no surprise then that, in collaboration with his wife, designer Juana Rojas, he embarked upon a voyage into the world of craft chocolate.  With an extraordinary range of single origin chocolate bars, all wrapped up beneath an exquisite origami boat reminiscent of the Spanish voyages that brought cacao to Europe in the sixteenth century, Paco invites you to pick your very own Utopian chocolate!