French Broad Chocolate Scorpion Pepper 72% Minibar

From the Maker:

"Peppers and chocolate make a good pair," says grower and pepper enthusiast, Bobby of Jah Works Farm in Asheville. Both possess euphoric qualities, boost energy, and lend themselves to tasting with discernment: relishing the layers of flavors that reveal themselves slowly, and differ slightly on everyone’s tongue. Scorpion peppers are among the most piquant in the world, with more than 1.2 million Scoville heat units. Aside from the heat, The Scorpion offers a tender fruit flavor, which makes it the perfect pepper to pair with a fruit-forward cacao blend.

This chocolate isn’t a badge-of-honor experience meant to burn you from the inside out; our use of The Scorpion is judicious. We taste the fruit notes of both the pepper and the cacao.

French Broad’s Story:  Dan & Jael lived in the cacao-rich jungles of Costa Rica for two years, where they opened a small café, called Bread & Chocolate. Daniel South was brought on as a dishwasher, eventually being trained as Head Baker. Now Daniel has returned to his agricultural roots as a cacao processor, cultivating cacao on his farm and buying the seeds from his neighbors. He ferments in wooden boxes made from trees felled on his land, and exports cacao directly to French Broad Chocolate. Building a viable cacao business hasn’t been easy for Daniel, but we are seeing his efforts bear fruit.