SOMA Old School 38% Milk Chocolate Bar

90-100 gram bar - Toronto, Canada

Milk chocolate before chocolate got so smooth.

SOMA’s Old School Milk Chocolate is made in an intentionally rustic style, using just three ingredients ground together in a vintage melangeur with no additional refining or conching. Partially ground cacao nibs, milk, and whole crystals of organic cane sugar give the bar its signature texture: crumbly, crunchy, and almost cookie-like rather than silky smooth.

This batch is made with cacao from Hacienda Las Bromelias near Ocumare de la Costa in Venezuela’s Aragua State, one of the historic heartlands of Venezuelan cacao. The small farm works with cacao carrying prized Criollo genetics and produces only a limited amount each year.

At 38% cacao, this is unquestionably milk chocolate, but the minimally processed cacao and coarse texture give it far more personality than an everyday bar. Notes of dried plum and citrus bring fruitiness, while walnut and almond add a warm, nutty character beneath the creamy milk and crunchy cane sugar.

It’s wonderfully unconventional: part chocolate bar, part cacao nib, part cookie-like confection—and a reminder that chocolate doesn’t have to be perfectly smooth to be seriously delicious.

Tasting notes: Dried plum, Walnut, Almond, Citrus

Cacao origin: Hacienda Las Bromelias, Ocumare de la Costa, Aragua, Venezuela

Ingredients: Cacao nibs, Milk, Organic cane sugar

Style: Rustic, minimally refined milk chocolate