Solkiki Miso 70% Dark – Costa Esmeraldas, Ecuador

Description

“We’ve taken a much loved foundation dark – Esmeraldas 70 – and added flakes of fermented soy – Miso.  The deeply savoury and salty umami profile of the miso we use stands up very well with the deeply chocolatey, juicy forest-fruity profile of our interpretation of Esmeraldas.

We have been making Miso for fun since 2018.  It is a fermented product, fermented soy, wheat, barley and other seeds, grains and pulses etc are cooked, mashed and innoculated with Koji. This miso here took years to ferment, worth every minute!

Miso is a wonderful foodstuff.  Packed full of nutrients and enzymes, it can be considered one of those perfect foods, that give us just what we need in terms of fibre, protein and carbs…  Brilliant for biome health, readily available and easy to grow, it’s a resource light, nutrient-dense food that tastes really satisfying.   There’s a massive range of profiles in miso, short ferments of a few weeks, even days sometimes, taste very different to a ferment of several years.  Differing recipe balances of the same ingredients fermenting for the same time yield great variation of flavour.  Ingredients can also vary a lot!   So it’s a complex fermentation process with massive variety, complexified by ingredients and balance, even sharing elements with cacao fermentation including time, materials (of fermentation vessel) and the number of times the batch is ‘turned’ – exposed to oxygen.  With 2 identical batches, turning 1 batch once and the other batch twice will yield a different flavour profile.   It’s a whole world to explore: resource-light, natural processing, delicious and highly sensitive to the maker, it was just a matter of time before we were seduced.!”