3 beans and a chocolate bar

By David Nilsen

Corina Gimenez was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and moved to southwest Norway over a decade ago after getting married. She calls herself “an immigrant of love,” and the union between Venezuela and Norway includes her career as a bean to bar chocolate maker at Xoco by Corina.

“My focus has been to use the Venezuelan cacao as a dialogue with Norwegian culture,” Corina explains. “So I’m quite happy to have Venezuelan cacao but use local, Scandinavian products. I’m quite lucky, because the region where we are, Rogaland, is known as the gastronomical area of the country. We have a lot of crops that grow locally and a lot of craft makers. It’s quite a bubbling food scene here. I have plenty of interesting products to work with.”

One such “dialogue” has taken place with Lervig Beer, a popular craft brewery in Stavanger. The brewery’s 3 Bean Stout is a potent 13% ABV Imperial Stout brewed with vanilla, cacao, and tonka beans. Corina was a fan of the brewery and the beer and reached out to ask if the brewers would like to collaborate. They loved the idea, and Corina’s 3 Bean Stout Chocolate was born.

A Wrongly Banned Bean

Tonka beans are a small legume that grows on a tropical tree, and it’s been cultivated extensively in Venezuela. The bean is highly aromatic, and was originally used in perfumes and related products before catching on in the culinary field. The flavor and aroma have elements of baking spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla, and some people notice influences of almond or coconut as well. A misunderstanding about one of the natural compounds in tonka beans has led to them being banned in food and drink in the United States, but this will hopefully change soon.

Corina’s 70% dark chocolate 3 Bean Stout bar is made with Venezuelan cacao that has soaked in the 3 Bean Stout for weeks before being used. The bar has a warm and complex but gentle spice profile of cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla layered through the rich, fudgy foundation of the dark chocolate. Despite listing those baking spices though, they don’t exactly hit the unique profile from the tonka beans, both floral and warming, creamy and bright.

Psychedelic Art

The trippy artwork for the bar features a hairy, blissed-out, multi-armed being with red finger and toe nails chilling against a background of psychedelic blue. The design came from the mind of Nanna Guldbaek, a graphic designer from Denmark who designs all the labels for Lervig’s beers as well. 

“I don’t necessarily want things to be pretty. I quite like when things are rough or wiggly and weird and comes from a place of being strange,” Nanna explains. “They should emphasize the story we’re telling about the beer and not necessarily be pretty to reach that goal.”

Nanna was inspired by the often dark fairy tales and myths of Nordic cultures, and sees a direct relationship between flavors in a beer or chocolate and the colors and shapes she uses in her designs.

“With most of the work I do, I start with the [flavor] itself,” she explains. “What are the tones and nuances, and what kinds of shapes does that represent? The vanilla and the chocolate were warm, mellow, soft shapes. The turquoise in the background is more the punchiness of the tonka beans.”

Warm, mellow, punchy...they all vie for space in this bar that is both elegant and bold, comforting and surprising. It’s appropriate that this chocolate bar from an “immigrant of love” represents the union of different flavor profiles so harmoniously.

Listen to my interview with Corina, Nanna, and Lervig brewer David Graham below for hear more: