My wife baked a German Chocolate cake last week and used about 5 oz my La Reserva brick of chocolate from Bitcoin Beans. I've never tasted anything like it (and I've eaten an extraordinary number of chocolate desserts).
If you follow Bitcoin Beans on nostr, you may have seen them describe their product as "food not candy" and talk about the different flavor notes, much like wine or coffee connoisseurs would. That's not just being pretentious, this stuff is loaded with rich flavors and scents that wash over you as you eat.
Apparently this is the advantage of single origin beans: the distinct flavors of the variety don't get diluted by other beans. Also, unsweetened chocolate is very nutritious and because this is not nearly as bitter as most baking cocoa, it doesn't need as much sweetener.
An easy way to enjoy the flavors is to just melt a little into your coffee, as @oshigood recently described.
I'm looking forward to whatever chocolate desserts the wife whips up next, particularly if it's some sort of brownie.
As a coffee drinker, this look really enticing. 1 pound seems like a lot, but worth it to support a bitcoin company.
Any recipe suggestions for combining with coffee? Would pouring over the chocolate and honey without adding milk or blending work? I don't have a working blender right now and not interested in adding milk.
Do you grind your beans at home? We throw some of their nibs into the grinder with our coffee beans.
I use coconut milk instead of cow milk, fwiw.
No photo?
Agreed single origin is best
I was addicted to Dove dark chocolate when I bought it.
It arrived. It's beautiful. Huge solid block. I've never tried cacao before. I did not have a proper shaver. I chipped some off an put it on top of vanilla ice cream to try it that way.
It's awesome. So awesome that I've stopped my Dove addiction. Now I'll just hold onto this until I get a proper chocolate shaver and can find more ways to enjoy it.
It's truly a whole 'nother level. Makes regular chocolate seem silly in comparison.
I didn't even know there was a particular tool for this. I just used a big ass knife to chop and shave off what we needed.
Me either, until I tried chopping at it with a steak knife. I figured there's gotta be a better way. Searched "chocolate shaver" on Amazon and found many.
I'm not some California hipster who feels the need to share photos of everything I eat.
bruh
I wanna see it going in and coming out
The single-origin approach to chocolate is the same revolution that happened with coffee about 15 years ago. Before specialty roasters, coffee was just "coffee." Once people tasted single-origin beans with specific processing methods, the commodity version became undrinkable.
The fact that you can buy this with sats directly from the producer is the part that matters beyond the taste. The typical bean-to-bar supply chain has 4-6 intermediaries between the farmer and the consumer, each taking a cut. Lightning lets the roaster sell direct, which means the farmer gets more and you pay less for a better product. That's not a Bitcoin ideology thing, it's just better economics.
Have you tried the coffee beans from them too, or just the chocolate?
Worth knowing that the cacao variety matters more than most folks realize. Criollo beans, which is what most single-origin craft bars use, represent less than 5% of global cacao production. The other 95% is Forastero, bred for disease resistance and yield, not flavor. That flavor gap is roughly analogous to heirloom tomatoes vs grocery store ones, except the price differential is 4-8x at the farm gate.
The bean-to-bar movement has shortened supply chains from 7-8 intermediaries down to 2-3. A Ghanaian cacao farmer on the commodity market gets about $1,800/ton. Direct trade single-origin pays $3,500-6,000/ton. Lightning removes the last friction: remittance fees that eat 8-12% on West African corridors drop to near zero.