Madagascar Single-Origin Dark 72%

From a single cooperative in the Sambirano valley: red-fruit forward, bright at the start, finishing like a good sourdough of chocolate with notes the tasting card describes as raspberry, citrus peel and roasted peanut. Two ingredients only — cocoa and sugar — because a harvest this characterful does not need help.

Beans are roasted to a profile written for this harvest, stone-ground for forty-eight hours, rested two weeks, then hand-tempered on marble in Bristol. The collar card carries the roast date and the price paid to the cooperative, which runs above the world commodity rate by a margin we publish rather than round up.

Eat it at room temperature, not from the fridge, and let a square melt slowly rather than chew. If you are tasting side by side with the Ecuador bar, start here — the Madagascar is the brighter of the two and the comparison makes sense in that order.