70% Black Sauna - Naive, 50 g
Product detailed description
A smoked dark chocolate built as a flavour portrait of the Lithuanian smoke sauna. The cocoa is smoked before it is ever processed, then Siberian fir, activated birch charcoal and a pinch of wormwood go in. The result is a 70% bar that tastes of woodsmoke, conifer and bitter herbs, with no refined sugar and no emulsifier.
The smoke sauna is still a living thing in Lithuania. Small moss covered log huts stand in the broadleaf forests, alder and birch burn under the stones inside, and the smoke is let out only once the stones have taken full heat. Then comes the salt rub, the whisking with leafy branches and the ice plunge. UNESCO lists the tradition as intangible cultural heritage, and Domantas Uzpalis, the chocolate maker behind Naive, translated it into a bar.
This is not a bar to finish in one sitting. It works in small pieces, with black coffee or a glass of something distilled, and the cross section is jet black from the birch charcoal. It makes a well aimed gift for a sauna regular.
Key benefits
- 70% cocoa solids – built on smoked cocoa, not on added flavouring
- 2% Siberian fir – the conifer note that holds the smoky profile together
- Activated birch charcoal – gives the bar its black cross section
- 1% wormwood – a bitter herb, and the reason this bar is not for pregnant or breastfeeding women
- No refined sugar – sweetened with raw cane sugar
- Bean to bar – Naive takes the beans from dried seed to finished bar in its own Lithuanian workshop
How to enjoy it
Break off a small piece and let it melt slowly on the tongue, as the smoke only arrives at the end. It tastes best at room temperature, so take it out of the cold a while before you open it.
Ingredients
Smoked cocoa*, cane sugar*, pure cocoa butter*, Siberian fir (2%)*, activated birch charcoal*, wormwood (1%), sea salt*. *wild harvested or all natural farming. Cocoa solids 70%. Made in Lithuania.
| Nutrition | per 100 g |
|---|---|
| Energy | 2505 kJ / 598 kcal |
| Fat | 38 g |
| of which saturates | 25.5 g |
| Carbohydrate | 51 g |
| of which sugars | 30 g |
| Protein | 5 g |
| Salt | 245 mg |
Important information
This chocolate contains wormwood and is not suitable for pregnant or breastfeeding women. May contain traces of milk, sunflower seeds, sesame, peanuts and nuts. Store in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight. The best before date is printed on the pack.
Distributor
Manufacturer: Chocolate Naive, Lithuania.
Distributor: Adam Raw, Metylovice 552, 739 49 Metylovice, Czech Republic, Reg. No. 03452824.
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Naive: bean-to-bar chocolate from Lithuania that treats cacao like wine
Naive is a small Lithuanian chocolate maker with an unusual approach. Rather than forcing every bean into the same recipe, the team analyses each cacao lot for taste, colour, aroma and texture and only then decides how to roast, grind and finish it. The goal is to reveal the character of that specific bean, not to hide it under sugar and vanilla.
The results have put Lithuania on the map of fine chocolate and earned Naive a reputation as one of the rising names in the craft chocolate world. Some bars are experiments you will not see anywhere else: Jaguar Tree Cacao made from the rare Theobroma bicolor, Ambrosia, a dark chocolate with bee pollen and honey, Kefir dark-milk, and the sugar-free Molecules series. More than twenty of them are on the shelf at BJP Store.