Blue Stripes: Madagascar Vanilla Cacao Water

A few years ago, I wrote about the Cacao Juice from Repurposed Pod that I got at Black Butterfly over in Prescott. More recently, I picked up a bottle of Cacao Water from Blue Stripes Urban Cacao. I'm not entirely sure if this is a separate company or if it's just a newer name for the same company. Either way, Blue Stripes is definitely worth checking out. They like to focus on cacao as a superfood. As such, you will find not only plenty of cacao water on their website but also cacao fruit smoothie pouches and dried cacao. Dried cacao? I must needs check that out.

As I mentioned last time, the idea of cacao water or juice or whatever you want to call it is that a great deal of what's in a cocoa pod gets wasted in the production of chocolate. This makes me think of something Art Pollard of Amano Chocolate once said; he said that his favorite way to taste chocolate was as the cocoa beans surrounded by pulp, fresh from the pod. At the time, I never thought I would get the opportunity to taste such cocoa, as I'm not exactly planning any trips to a cocoa plantation anytime soon. (I have since found that you can guy cocoa pods online from specialty fruit importers--maybe someday I'll have a cocoa pod party.) But cacao water does get you just a step closer to looking at the whole pod, not just a processed product made out of its seeds (aka. chocolate). 

Most of my comments from before still hold for this product, except that this time I got Madagascar Vanilla. Other flavors are Mango and Chili Lime. Vanilla seemed like just a mild flavor element, which is why I started there, though the others probably go quite well, too. After all, remember, this is a tangy beverage. I likened the honey-colored liquid to a type of lemonade. So when you add vanilla to it, the effect isn't entirely unlike honey lemonade. Especially on the first couple of sips, your mind doesn't entirely know what to do with the flavors. Honey lemonade just seems like the most familiar thing to latch onto.

How do you describe it, besides to say that it is tangy? It isn't sweet, though the vanilla gives a hint of sweet flavor--and yet it is more sweet than some fruits. This is where the lychee comparison came in last time. Lychee also has that tangy almost sweet type of flavor. There is a thick and heavy aroma to the beverage this time that I don't remember noting last time--so I'm going to say that it comes mainly from the vanilla and not as much from the cacao. While, in theory, vanilla should make such a drink more palatable, I feel like I enjoyed the plain version more. It's been a few years, so I really can't say; I would have to do a side by side. It could be that last time was just when the whole idea was new to me, so I was very excited about the overall product. But I didn't feel like it was lacking in anything when it was plain. My recommendation at this point, then, would probably be to either get it plain or to try the Mango or the Chili Lime. 

But whatever flavor you settle on, the product is great. I like the idea of it, and I like the way it tastes. If it's a superfood beverage, well, it's a fun one. It doesn't taste anything like chocolate, if you hadn't realized that by this point. But it's a nice drink to keep on the refrigerator shelf between the coconut water and the açaí juice for days when you just want a little extra boost. 

Black Butterfly Selection & Cacao Juice

Kind of a mixed review today. Basically I'm just giving an overview of the things that I discovered last time I was at Black Butterfly in Prescott. The fact is, it's too hot right now to be carting chocolate around (unless you genuinely have a cooler in your car), so I would have needed to photograph and review these chocolates right away in order to do things properly. And, well, that isn't usually convenient.

They were just such a wonderful bundle of chocolates, though, that I hate to give no note of them. While I have no pictures, I will say that while Black Butterfly always has such an exquisite, artistic style, everything in the store that day was even more gorgeous than usual. There were so many new things, too, which is why I couldn't resist getting maybe more than I should have. All of the colors and the paint work was all happy and classy at the same time. Gorgeous, gorgeous.

From the case, I chose a Mint Meltaway and a Turtle. The mint was nice and creamy and light and not very strong on mint flavor, which was probably what made it more pleasing to me. The Turtle was one of those beautiful pieces that would make for a great gift--for someone of any age. Content-wise, it was a little closer to standard than I'd been expecting. The caramel, for instance, while certainly of much better flavor, is more of that standard sticky style. Pecans and chocolate are pecans and chocolate. The trio make for a good mix.

One of the exciting new things in the shop are the Snack Bars. Basically they're upscale, candy bars. Clear boxes with long bars of chocolate painted (again) exquisitely. The concept makes them perfect for either eating right away (by yourself or with your group) or giving as a gift. The whole snack bar/candy bar thing also makes them more approachable for those who might be intimidated by a case of truffles. It took me a while to choose two flavors, but I went with the PB& J and Caramel Macchiato. I was trying to go for one more casual and one less casual.

Possibly, though, I didn't choose the best flavors for me. I always bring this up when I talk about peanut butter chocolates, but I'm a bit of a hippie and I only like peanut butter that is made with just peanut and salt--no oil or anything like that. So that peanut butter taste that most people love . . . is a little too much for me. This chocolate leans more to that style and while the strawberry element is good, it's also a tad on the sweet side. I'm going to go, then, with that awkward statement that I think most people (to whom a PB&J bar sounds good) will enjoy this bar but it's a little too sweet and all for my weird tastes (it isn't as though I don't like sweetness--just not all sweetness).

The Caramel Macchiato had little circles of caramel in it, of the same type that the Turtle had. It also had that coffee flavor that was in itself strong but made up a smaller percentage of the overall taste--like with a flavored coffee beverage like a caramel macchiato. It's dark chocolate, but only of 61% cocoa content, so still a sweeter sort of bar here, as would be expected from a line like this.

So, fun new things to try out.

The other fun thing is a new product Black Butterfly is carrying. Cacao Juice made by Repurposed Pod. Can I stress to you how amazing this product is? I'll try.

First of all, I don't think I've really talked much about how great Tracy Taylor of Black Butterfly is. Not only does she make such beautiful chocolate, but she also is welcoming when you come in to the shop. She offers samples and tells you all about the products and how they're made, etc. Though I'd already had my chocolate sample when I came in, when I mentioned how excited I was about the cacao juice (because of course I was going to buy some no matter what), she got me a sample of that, too. So I had my first sip of cacao juice there in her shop.

It's distinctive, certainly. As you can see, it has an off-white color, with a bit of yellow to it, like cream soda or something like that. It smells fruity, almost lemony. The taste, too, I want to describe as lemony, even though that obviously isn't exactly the flavor. Tracy mentioned that it's similar to lychee--and I thought, oh, yes, that's it. That . . . different yet approachable sort of flavor that has some tang to it but also sweetness. And that's what makes it maybe similar to drinking lemonade, after all: it has both a hint of a zing while also being sweet. And yet this is 100% cacao juice with nothing added to it, no sugar, no water, no nothing. So it's kind of amazing how complex the flavor is--but would we expect anything less from a cacao product?

It feels similar, too, to drinking something like coconut water or aloe vera juice. Something that has a super distinctive flavor that is clear and crisp and clean and also strong yet not strong at the same time.

What is cacao juice exactly, though, you ask? Well, you see, the folks at Repurposed Pod thought hey, cacao pulp is a by-product of the chocolate-making process. How would it be if chocolate farmers could get paid for that, too? With the growing efforts to give farmers a livable wage for their work, it's great to think that we can also be using more of their product. So the cacao juice is made from the pulp of the cacao pods after the beans/seeds are removed to make chocolate. They flash-pasteurize it right there and then high-pressure pasteurize it once it gets to the U.S. Each 8.75 ounce bottle takes six pods to make.

And if you're paying attention to things of that sort, this juice is high in magnesium and B vitamins and antioxidants. Cacao is a fruit so why wouldn't it be healthy?

You can add it to smoothies or make cocktails out of it (Repurposed Pod has a great list of cocktail recipes on their website) or whatever creative things you'd like. Myself, though? I think it tastes amazing as is. Granted, I do drink things like aloe vera juice (the 100% kind, not the weird diluted ones) on a daily basis, so you might want to try it yourself first before you order a case of it. I imagine, though, that even if it's the type of thing some people might find odd-tasting at first, it's also the type that your palate will quickly adjust to.

So I could completely see this product taking off as the next big thing. It tastes amazing and it has great potential for health marketing and sustainable marketing and fair trade marketing and coolness marketing. It's pretty much the best thing ever.