Nibs de cacau

The same bean twice, once ground smooth and once left as gravel.

Two beans roasted to the same pyrazines. One is crunch, one is liquid.

The nib is already sour-fruited; the berry just says it out loud.

Zest oil sits on a bitter fat and gives it the top note it does not have.

Heat rides on cocoa butter. The crunch is what keeps it from being a drink.

Two bitternesses, one peppery and one tannic, with flaky salt between them.

Crusted on a steak the nibs char and read as pepper with a longer tail.

Roast both: the nib bitterness lands on brassica sulfur as browned butter.

Same earthy pyrazines; the beet sugar is the only sweetener the nib needs.

Salt, yeast and bitterness with no sugar between them. A very dry pairing.

Unsweetened cocoa bitterness under cane sugar; both fermented before they were roasted.

Nibs finish the plate with bitterness and crunch where fat has flattened it.

Bitter nib in the adobo reads as extra char on a meat with little fat.

Nibs in the crust: bitter roast pyrazines double what the skin already has.

Toasted grain and crushed nib share the same roast. Serve it savoury and nobody guesses.

Both bitter, both crunchy, both South American. Roast them in the same pan.

Crushed over the mash: bitter crunch on soft earth, no sugar anywhere near it.

Bitter crunch on a soft savoury pea. Shared roast, and no sugar involved.

Nib bitterness over kombu glutamate reads as stock that cooked for a day.

Crushed over the top: bitter, roasty, crunchy. All three were missing.

Steep the nibs in the bottle. Bitterness and crunch turn a cheap spirit strange.