One of my best friends from high school engaged in an international pen pal service. Many years later, she eventually married the Finnish man she had met through that letter exchange service (before the advent of the internet, but not too much before, lol). She now lives near Helsinki, but recently came back just this last month to visit many friends and remaining family members. (She can do the work-from-home thing which means she can work from just about anywhere so long as she has decent wifi.)
And she brought me Finnish chocolates (as she often does), which are less sweet than the kind you find in America, but quite good overall.
However, this time she brought a small bar as an experiment.
(The image is taken off of the Puhdistamo website.)
It's not a very big bar, about two fingers wide, a little bit more than finger-length long. But it was mint, and my friend knows I like mint.
Turns out, it does not taste like any chocolate I have ever had before. And the reason is in the "Raaklasuklaa" part of the name. Raw Chocolate*. (*Note, NOT a direct translation!)
What does that mean? Well...apparently...it's not fermented.
To clarify, chocolate goes through two (2) fermentation steps.
The first is when the pods are harvested, split open, and the seeds are scooped out and dumped into a pile with the pith (juicy bits) of the fruit, where they are lightly covered by leaves (iirc) and left to ferment in the open for a week or so.
Then they go to be cleaned, roasted, shelled, winnowed, ground, mixed with other stuff, special treatments of temperatures, etc...and then they get poured into bars that are then set aside for literal months to continue fermenting. This is the second round of fermenting.
I am not certain which step was skipped (it could be both for all I know), but this chocolate is not fermented.
Now, we mostly think of fermenting as being alcoholic (because drinks!), but it's not. Technically, pickles are fermented. Sauerkraut is fermented. This is a not-alcoholic-in-nature fermentation process that normal chocolate bars go through, to develop the rich, strong flavors that make chocolate so distinctive.
But in this Raakasuklaa bar...?
It's raw, not fermented.
The flavors are there, but they're very very subtle. The mint is much stronger. And like many things in Europe, it's not very sweet, so the mint is the highest riding note, but it's not overly sweet. (Kinda like spearmint gum, in fact.) Aside from the mint, it's mostly a texture that you notice. (Not an unpleasant one, just there's more texture than flavor...?)
I think this is a chocolate bar that those who cannot stand strong flavors would like.
Which makes me think of my fellow author Nalini Singh, and her Psy-Changeling universe, where the psy race underwent a century of emotionless existence in order to learn enough discipline to control their psychic powers. In order to ensure that cool logical attitude, they developed a lot of foods that were, well, bland. Because strong flavors provoke strong emotions.
This is a chocolate bar that would be consumed by the psy in Nalini's created world. it's a good bar that is remarkably mild Even if something is mild-mannered, that doesn't mean it's bad. It's simply something different.
If you are curious (and can get your hands on some), I say, why not give it a try?
(Just don't go into the experience expecting a strong flavor sensation.)
