Chipotle Bar - Byrne & Carlson

The discovery of this chocolate (a week or so ago, during my first visit to Fog City News) has led me to create this new category for Le Fabuleux Destin: Chocolate reviews. I've always loved chocolate and had already been taking lovely little trips to Bittersweet and Café Cacao with some friends, but this chocolate is the first I've had that made me want to share it with the world! (The news that the chocolate, not the chocolate itself... I want to keep that to myself.)

The Chipotle Bar is described thusly:

Garnished with Sea Salt - 70 percent cacao. A robust bittersweet Venezuelan chocolate spiced with chipotle pepper and sprinkled with Welsh sea salt.

At first bite, I wasn't so sure I'd love it: it was quite hard and seemed dry but it quickly began a perfect, smooth slow melting. The sea salt on the top is delicate, not overwhelming and completely tantalizing. The chipotle is very subtle but definitely intriguing. I've tried my fair share of spicy chocolate, and this is by far the best I've had.

I now have to figure out how to categorize these chocolates. I have difficulty giving overall grades, so I think I'll break it down into characteristics I look for.

Cacao power: Intensity of the cacao. (I tend to like them dark and intense, so in general, higher percentage of cacao would rate higher)
Meltiness: This isn't always a factor of amount of cocoa butter used or cream... and sometimes darker chocolates can be meltier than milk chocolates.
Flavour Complexity: Not necessarily what spices are used... a lovely dark chocolate piece that has no additional spices can often be more complex than a multi-ingredient extravaganza.

So for this bar:
Cacao power: 5 beans Meltiness: 4.5 beans Flavour Complexity: 5 beans