The Pacific Northwest if famous for it’s coffee and the coffee shops that have spread around the world. Now another coffee treat comes from Portland, Oregon with much promise for the world wide market, as well.
Coffee and chocolate are natural partners , though it took Elizabeth Montes of Sahagún, the tiny artisanal chocolatiere in Portland, Oregon, to take it beyond the obvious “two great tastes that taste great together” to a mash-up so pure they become an integrated whole.
Meet KA-POW!, a chocolate bar made with coffee — in other words, a coffee bar.
The theory behind the coffee bar is to treat coffee beans like they’re cocoa beans: coffee provides the color and flavor (helped by some sugar), while cocoa butter provides the texture. It looks like chocolate, snaps like chocolate and melts like chocolate. But it has the full, rich, lingering flavor of coffee for those who thoroughly enjoy their coffee..
That is, it has the flavor of beans from small-batch coffee producers like Extracto Coffeehouse and Roaster,. And because KA-POW! is only made with single-origin beans, each batch is distinct: there’s the musky fruit of the Ethiopian Sidamo Guji from Ristretto Roasters , As their coffees change, so will KA-POW coffee bars!
“When people appreciate the flavor, it’s because the beans are roasted by these incredible masters who are all around me here,” Montes said over the phone. “I wasn’t a huge coffee drinker before, but in Portland you can’t escape it.”
Portland’s specialty coffee roasters carry a large fan group behind them and are anxious to have consumers try their candy barsl
And if you want to get KA-POW! outside of Portland, you need to mail-order it.
Our favorite Portland coffees are Stumptown Coffee and Caffe Umbria. In today’s economy, we save money making our coffee at home and to ensure the best cup, we make a single cup at a time with a Breville Keurig Coffee Maker. Look for the Keurig best price in single cup coffee.
