It's no secret - I love Pump Street's chocolate, especially their bars that fuse the best of their chocolate craft with the best creations from their very own bakery. If you've not come across the brand before, check out their Sourdough & Sea Salt Chocolate, Gingerbread Dark Chocolate, Panettone Dark Chocolate, and Hot Cross Bun Dark Chocolate bars.
Today's bar is my first look at just their chocolate craft. It's a simple 58% dark milk chocolate crafted from cocoa beans sourced from a single estate in Madagascar.
Packaging
The bar is presented inside the same packaging used elsewhere in the Pump Street range. It's a beige foil-backed paper envelope with a push seal lip. A pink bordered sticker lists the product name at the base of the wrapper, while a pink circular sticker (listing the batch number and best before date) seals the top.
The cocoa for this single estate chocolate bar heralds from the Åkesson's Organic Estate in Ambanja, northern Madagscar.
The rear of the packaging explores Pump Street's ethics and heritage. It also explains that the resealable envelope and sticker is 100% compostable, designed as part of Pump Street's aim to make their packaging as sustainable and low impact as possible.
A sticker at the bottom lists the ingredients (in English, German and French) and nutritional information for this bar.
Pump Street 58% Madagascar Milk Chocolate Bar ingredients:
Organic cocoa beans, cane sugar, organic cocoa butter, milk powder. Cocoa solids: 58% minimum.
The bar contains a smidgen over 32% sugars. It contains an unusually large amount of cocoa for a milk chocolate bar, which is clearly a very good thing.
Pump Street 58% Madagascar Milk Chocolate Bar Review
A beautiful 16 segment bar awaits inside the envelope. I found four pieces makes a pleasant serving.
It is practically flawless, with a glimmering sheen and a pleasing snap. It's also got a characterful aroma, full of molasses, brown bread, and just a hint of tobacco. In fact, its aroma is more akin to that of a dark chocolate than a milk chocolate.
Pump Street describes this chocolate as "creamy and luxurious" (thanks to the inclusion of whole milk) with notes of caramel and treacle, with a zesty finish. For me, I get a very similar picture, but in reverse.
The initial taste is quite fruity, almost zesty, The flavour elegantly morphs throughout the melt. Notes of honey make way for richer, jammy prune notes. It then darts into hints of tangy pineapple before mellowing out in to nutty, cashew-like flavours.
Buttery flavours develop right at the end, with hints of creamy toffee in the subtle aftertaste. The aftertaste fades gently but quickly.
While delicious, as suspected, it lacks the signature crunch of some creations from Pump Street's bakery. That's not to say this is a bad bar, just simply less exciting than their mashup bars in my opinion.
This chocolate is smooth, elegant and takes you on a journey along gentle waves of flavour. It doesn't thrash you around, nor does it push your boundaries, but instead it demonstrates craftsmanship in the form of bean-to-bar chocolate.
As for the 58% cocoa content, if you're worried this is too intense for you, fear not. The sugar levels and milk powder help to soften the intensity of the cocoa, making a very well balanced and flavourful dark milk chocolate bar.
Pump Street 58% Madagascar Milk Chocolate Bar Review
RRP: £6.75 | Pump Street | Shop now
A sophisticated, indulgent grown-up chocolate bar with the sweetness and creaminess of a milk chocolate but the nuances of a dark chocolate. While it lacks excitement for me, it does demonstrate craftsmanship in creating a flavourful single farm chocolate bar,
Where to Buy Online
Pump Street sells this bar directly on its website and in its Bakery in Orford, Suffolk (£6.75). It's also available on speciality websites such as Cocoa Runners (£6.75), Ustudio (£6.75), and Pinney's of Orford (£6.75).
There's also a smaller 20g size available in pink packaging. Halen Môn (£6.20) and The Bay Tree Company (£2.99) stock these. Pump Street sells this bar as a four pack here (£10.40).
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What is your favourite Pump Street bar? Let me know in a comment below.
