Chocolove Chilies & Cherries in Dark Chocolate

3.2oz (90g) bar
Ingredients: Cocoa liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla, dried cherries, ancho chilies, chipotle chilies
14g sugar/30g serving (46.7% by wt.)

Corporate Info: (Copied from 3/16/13) I have a soft spot for Chocolove, having lived in near its hometown of Boulder, Colorado and enjoyed the company's samples in my local Whole Foods. It's a relatively young company (Wikipedia says 1996; Chocolove's website indicates similar), hasn't yet been bought by a giant conglomerate, and claims it has taken or is taking several steps toward "sustainability & social responsiblity." On the other hand, Chocolove produces only three organic, fair trade bars and is rated a C by the Better World folks (same as Hershey's, much better than Nestle), so I don't want to give them my unconditional Choco-love (ha ha, I crack me up). But it's cheaper than most premium chocolate—$2-2.50 a bar—and reliably tasty.

Note: Chocolove's flavored dark bars are in 55% cacao, which I know I'll find too sweet, but I can't help but be enticed by all the flavor options.

Today's Bar: Dried cherries with two types of chiles, mild ancho and smoky chipotle, in 55% cacao.

Appearance: Another purple-grey brown, in Chocolove's quilted mold, with a somewhat bumpy back.

Smell: Sweet and rich, with the nose-filling scent that is clearly the chile, though it doesn't strike me as distinctively chile-ish.

Taste: Sweet and thick, then the chew of the dried cherries, then their sweet and sour flavor, then a slow build and finally throat-prickling chile. The spice isn't at all overwhelming--either heat or smoke--more of a rounded addition that adds to the overall flavor and experience, complementing the sweet-tart cherries and mouth-coating chocolate. Really an excellent combination.

Conclusion: Chocolove Chilies & Cherries in Dark Chocolate combines thick, sweet dark chocolate and chewy, sweet-tart cherries, with the mouth-filling support of prickly, not overly hot or smoky chile.  

Chocolove Cherries & Almonds in Dark Chocolate

3.2oz (90g) bar
Ingredients: Cocoa liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla, dried cherries, almonds, rice flour, sunflower oil
13g sugar/30g serving (43.3% by wt.)

Corporate Info: (Copied from 3/16/13) I have a soft spot for Chocolove, having lived in near its hometown of Boulder, Colorado and enjoyed the company's samples in my local Whole Foods. It's a relatively young company (Wikipedia says 1996; Chocolove's website indicates similar), hasn't yet been bought by a giant conglomerate, and claims it has taken or is taking several steps toward "sustainability & social responsiblity." On the other hand, Chocolove produces only three organic, fair trade bars and is rated a C by the Better World folks (same as Hershey's, much better than Nestle), so I don't want to give them my unconditional Choco-love (ha ha, I crack me up). But it's cheaper than most premium chocolate—$2-2.50 a bar—and reliably tasty. 

Note: Chocolove's flavored dark bars are in 55% cacao, which I know I'll find too sweet, but I can't help but be enticed by all the flavor options.

Today's Bar: Cherry and almond in 55% cacao.

Appearance: Purple-grey brown in Chocolove's quilted pattern, with rounded bumps and visible almonds on the back.

Smell: Sweet and nutty. I don't get cherries per se, but there's a little dried fruit in there.

Taste: This is another sweet and thick dark Chocolove bar, but unlike last week's, with its tart freeze-dried raspberries, this one includes sweet, chewy cherries and pieces of almond. The cherry does have a bit of sweet-sour charm (and I do love cherries in chocolate), and its texture is a great addition, but mostly it doesn't cut the sweetness of the chocolate. The almonds are tasty but intermittent: Not all squares include enough almond to taste. So this isn't my favorite, but really it's a pretty good bar.

Conclusion: Chocolove Cherries & Almonds in Dark Chocolate has good textural variation from the cherries and the intermittent almonds and a slight tartness in the sweet cherries, and is overall a good, fairly sweet, rich bar.

Chocolove Raspberries in Dark Chocolate

3.2oz (90g) bar
Ingredients: Cocoa liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla, freeze dried raspberries
13g sugar/30g serving (43.3% by wt.)

Corporate Info: (Altered from 10/15/11) I have a soft spot for Chocolove, having lived in near its hometown of Boulder, Colorado and enjoyed the company's samples in my local Whole Foods. It's a relatively young company (Wikipedia says 1996; Chocolove's website indicates similar), hasn't yet been bought by a giant conglomerate, and claims it has taken or is taking several steps toward "sustainability & social responsiblity." On the other hand, Chocolove produces only three organic, fair trade bars and is rated a C by the Better World folks (same as Hershey's, much better than Nestle), so I don't want to give them my unconditional Choco-love (ha ha, I crack me up). But it's cheaper than most premium chocolate—$2-2.50 a bar—and reliably tasty. 

Note: Chocolove's flavored dark bars are in 55% cacao, which I know I'll find too sweet, but I can't help but be enticed by all the flavor options.

Today's Bar: Raspberry, as in freeze-dried raspberries as an inclusion.

Appearance: Red and grey undertones in Chocolove's usual quilt-like pattern. The back is covered in bumps of raspberry coated with chocolate.

Smell: Mild but fresh, with a hint of raspberry and nuts.

Taste: Okay, yes, this is sweet, but the freeze-dried raspberries retain their tart flavor, so I get a hit of sour freshness to cut the mild, sweet, and creamy chocolate. The creaminess is a good match for the sugar, too, because while it might be sweeter than I like, it's evened out by a rich flavor and texture. Raspberry seeds add to the textural variation--not that there are tons, but there are enough to crunch a little and stick in my teeth, which is actually a boon in that it provides a lingering sour counterpoint to the chocolate. Success.

Conclusion: Chocolove Raspberries in Dark Chocolate's sweet, thick chocolate and crunchy, tart freeze-dried raspberries balance each other well.

Cachet Lemon & Pepper

3.5oz (100g) bar
Ingredients: Cocoa mass, sugar, lemon granules (inulin, lemon extract, lemon zest), cocoa butter, butter oil, black pepper, soy lecithin
14g sugar/38g serving (36.8% by wt.)

Corporate Info: (copied from 2/23/13) Cachet is a subsidiary of Kim's Chocolates, a Belgian company founded in 1987 that makes bars and confections under the Cachet name as well as a line called KC Chocolatier. I'm not sure what the difference is in terms of branding, other than that Cachet is "available in supermarkets and at many confectioners," while KC Chocolatier is in "specialist chocolate shops, delicatessens, Duty Free shops and on board aeroplanes." Cachet offers a fairly large assortment (click through to see groupings), including a few sugar-free varieties, though I notice that no ingredients are listed on the site. 

Today's Bar: Lemon & Pepper in 57% cacao, again one of Cachet's "fruit tablets." Contains the hated "granules."

Appearance: Plain old medium brown, slightly glossy.

Smell: Not strong. I get both lemon and pepper, which is nice, and a little mild chocolate.

Taste: Waxy chocolate, then lemon--not too candy-ish, but also not fresh-tasting or sour--then the crunch of a few granules, then the prickle of black pepper. I could've done without the granules, even for the texture they add, but there aren't many and the flavor they contribute is fine. I like the black pepper, a spice I don't find often in chocolate, which here is both distinctly perceivable and not too strong. The chocolate, while mild and sweet, is well balanced with the mild flavorings--greater sourness or bitterness or what have you would create a totally different flavor profile with this particular lemon and pepper, and in this bar it works.

Conclusion: Cachet Lemon & Pepper isn't the highest quality of anything, but it's provides a perfectly functional and mild version of an uncommon flavoring in chocolate.

Cachet Blackberry & Ginger

3.5oz (100g) bar
Ingredients: Cocoa mass, sugar, blackberry granules (inulin, blackberry flavoring, blackberry powder), cocoa butter, butter oil, ginger granules (inulin, ginger flavoring, natural flavorings), soy lecithin
14g sugar/38g serving (36.8% by wt.)

Corporate Info: (Copied from 2/23/13) Cachet is a subsidiary of Kim's Chocolates, a Belgian company founded in 1987 that makes bars and confections under the Cachet name as well as a line called KC Chocolatier. I'm not sure what the difference is in terms of branding, other than that Cachet is "available in supermarkets and at many confectioners," while KC Chocolatier is in "specialist chocolate shops, delicatessens, Duty Free shops and on board aeroplanes." Cachet offers a fairly large assortment (click through to see groupings), including a few sugar-free varieties, though I notice that no ingredients are listed on the site.

Today's Bar: Blackberry & Ginger, one of Cachet's "fruit tablets," in 57% cacao.

Appearance: Medium brown with pale flecks beneath the surface.

Smell: Fake-fruity, sweet and candy-like berry rather than fresh or tart or dried. Chocolate is mild under the fruit scent.

Taste: Too-sweet berry perfume, then the crunch of the "granules," then a sweet, slightly chalky, but generally pleasant very mild chocolate. I'm not getting ginger almost at all, though since I'm looking for it I think I can pull it out just a touch. I've decided I don't like "granules"--this isn't recognizable dried berry, or candied ginger, or hard candies flavored with either, it's some sort of unholy creation that's supposed to taste like them, and it only does in a broad, not-real-food sense. Ugh, and now I taste lingering "natural flavoring blackberry type" (the actual text in the listed ingredients)...blech. A letdown after last week.

Conclusion: Cachet Blackberry & Ginger is redolent of fake berry, with the odd texture of industrial "granules." I don't like it.

Richart Around the World of Cocoa (Small)

80g box, in 32 thin wafers

Ingredients: Unknown. Definitely cacao and sugar, milk as an option, probably soy lecithin (“Nutrition Facts” online includes “contains: soy”), possibly vanilla but I'm guessing not.

Sugar content depends on options chosen.

Corporate Info: Richart is a high-end French chocolatier selling mostly confections along with macarons. Richart was founded in 1925, and today its products can be found in its French boutiques, a shop in New York City, and online.

Today's Box: Richart's Around The World of Cocoa (small), a very nice holiday gift from a loving relative who shares my interest in chocolate. In this box are four different chocolates (the company selects from eight options), each presented in a stack of eight thin, square wafers: Sarajiva 37% (with 33% milk, from the “Indian Ocean” region), Sambiraja 70% (Madagascar), Chuabello 82% (Venezuela), and Linkaterra 100% (Peru). For $29.00, this is not an everyday sort of treat, but it's a pretty neat gift for a chocolate lover, including oneself!

Appearance:  

• Sarajiva 37% is yellow-brown and creamy.  
• Sambiraja 70% and Chuabello 82% are similar medium browns, with the 70% slightly greyer. 
• Linkaterra 100% is a deep reddish brown, not as dark as one might think. All are mostly matte with a brushed sort of gloss.

Smell: Let's see... 

• Sarajiva 37%: Sweet, super mild, and like fresh cream. 
• Sambiraja 70%: Not strong, but roasted and nutty. 
• Chuabello 82%: Also not strong, but bitter and charred. 
• Linkaterra 100%: Sharp and sour.

Taste: 

• Sarajiva 37%: This is good milk chocolate, rich and creamy and sweet but not saccharine.  
• Sambiraja 70%: Richart's chocolate is as smooth as advertised, texture-wise, with the flavor here having a bitter edge but not heaviness: this isn't a tannic, fruity red wine chocolate but rather something roasty and bitter but soft.  
• Chuabello 82%: Wow! This chocolate is deep and has very little sweetness, with a quite small, thinly bitter undercurrent. Smooth but thick, heavy but not punch-in-the-mouth flavorful. Interesting. 
• Linkaterra 100%: Okay, so this is 100% cacao, which means no sugar or anything else to smooth out or punch up the flavor. Here that means a slow-building, rounded sourness with no edges, and a super-thick but smooth texture. I'm sure I'll finish this variety last, but it's not unenjoyable.

Conclusion: Richart Around the World of Cocoa (Small) is a fun, high-end chocolate tasting experience.

Trader Joe's Organic Stone Ground Salt & Pepper Dark Chocolate

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2.6oz (73.7g) in two discs

Ingredients: I lost the label for this (it's a sticker on the back), but the Taza product contains just organic cocoa beans, organic sugar, salt, and pepper, and is 55% cacao.

Corporate Info: (Copied from 10/6/12) I've had very mixed results with Trader Joe's chocolate, enough that I rarely review it. The quirky-gourmet company is hit or miss anyway, with some products being regular purchases for years, some becoming favorites and then disappearing from shelves, and some straight up disappointing. There isn't much to say aside from a fun fact: The US's beloved Trader Joe's is owned by Germany's ALDI, which operates discount supermarkets all over Europe—and that explains why we saw packages of dried fruit and nuts labeled Trader Joe's in an ALDI in Osnabrück.

This Bar: (Altered from 10/13/12) Trader Joe's is known for offering store brand goods that are possibly lower-cost, identical products made by a name brand manufacturer and sold in very similar packaging that makes the connection even more obvious. Today's stone-ground cacao discs look mighty familiar, don't they? Well, they're as close as you can come (without being 100% positive) to Taza's two-to-a-package, spoke-scored, stone-ground Salt and Pepper Chocolate Mexicano, which I actually haven't reviewed here, though I can't compare the ingredients as I write this (see above). TJ's is only $3.99, while Taza's is $4.50 on its website and $5-6 in stores around my city. I don't have the Taza product here, but I can review TJ's discs alone. So how are they?

Appearance: This actually has a slightly darker, redder undertone than last week's 70% bar, despite being lower cacao (I think). Again, it's glossy with a grainy cross-section, due to the stone-ground cacao and sugar crystals.

Smell: Rich, dark, and a little sweet, with the black pepper adding a spiciness that doesn't stand out but rather makes the chocolate smell more complex.

Taste: Again, the texture is gritty, reflecting both the cacao and the sugar. The first flavors that hit me are salty-savory and sweet, not chocolatey, which is interesting. The salt and pepper don't taste strongly salty or peppery but rather contribute to an overall savory flavor, with the flavor-enhancing properties of salt and the slow burn of pepper. The sweetness stands out, probably because of the lower cacao content (I think) as well as the separate sugar crystals, which makes it a little too sweet for me but does provide a good counterpoint to the savoriness of the salt and pepper. Personally I'd like to taste this spice blend in 70% cacao, but it works if you like more sugar in your chocolate.

Conclusion: Trader Joe's Organic Stone Ground Salt & Pepper Dark Chocolate is sweet and savory, with the interestingly gritty texture of stone-ground cacao.

Madre Chocolate Passion Fruit Hawaiian Dark Chocolate

1.5oz (43g) bar

Ingredients: Hawaiian cacao beans, organic sugar, o. cocoa butter, Hawaiian passion fruit, Mexican whole vanilla

Corporate Info: (Copied from 8/11/12) Madre is basically brand new (circa early 2011), the brainchild of a traveler working on social justice in Central America and a botanist with a focus on food and medicinal plants. There's a lot of passion behind everything written about the company: the “About Us” page of their website, the focus on ecology and direct contact with cacao farmers, the now-funded Kickstarter, and even reviews by fans of their chocolate and their shop in Kailua. The cacao is grown organically, some on the Big Island (in the only U.S. state in which this is possible) and some in Central America, and they make the chocolate bean-to-bar in Hawaii. Madre has already been talked up in Saveur and, at greater length, by food personality Aida Mollenkamp after she visited the founders in Hawaii.

Madre currently produces two lines of chocolate, one inspired by Latin American cacao and flavorings and the other using Hawaiian cacao and flavorings. All three of my bars come from the latter line and are listed as “limited edition” because of the seasonality and availability of some of the ingredients. As you might imagine, this is not cheap chocolate: All bars are 1.5oz (half the size of most common chocolate bars) and range from $6 to $10 each on the website, and as my mother experienced, they may cost slightly more in stores. The bars are sold all over Hawaii, but they look to be spreading quickly to high-end and specialty stores in the U.S. and abroad.

[Update 9/5: I forgot to change these scheduled posts to indicate that reader Emma has pointed out that the mold Madre uses is mass produced, and you can find it here. Now you know.] 

Today's Bar: Passion fruit in 70% cacao.

Appearance: Matte, greyish-orangish brown with tiny dark and light specks.

Smell: Sweet, beany, fruity, nutty, and mild.

Taste: Texture is crunchy then smooth, with a fresh, light sweet-sour flavor following in little bursts from teeny tiny flecks of dried passion fruit. Unlike Marabou's passion fruit bar, this tastes like the real deal, subtle but genuine.

Conclusion: Madre Chocolate Passion Fruit Hawaiian Dark Chocolate offers subtle but legit and complex passion fruit flavor.

Green & Black's Maya Gold

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Organic fair trade chocolate, oft. raw cane sugar, oft. cocoa butter, soy lecithin, orange and spice flavor, oft. vanilla, o. whole milk powder

18g sugar/40g serving (45% by wt.)

Corporate Info: Check out this Brand Overview from March.

Today's Bar: Maya Gold is Green & Black's nod to “Mexican” or otherwise “Central American”-themed chocolate flavorings. Often that's a mix of hot chile and cinnamon, maybe pepper and/or vanilla; here it's (according to the website) a non-hot combo of orange, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla, and they're claiming inspiration from the Maya of southern Belize.

Appearance: Green & Black's usual semi-glossy chocolate in a lightly scored mold. Color is kind of flat looking, with a purplish undertone.

Smell: Well-incorporated sweetness and light spice; the nutmeg stands out along with what I'm guessing is orange oil rather than some other orange extract.

Taste: I've had Maya Gold before and liked it, as it conforms to Green & Black's standard: Thoroughly flavored, balanced, not challenging. Texture is thick and rich. Flavor is sweet (it's only 55% cacao) but entirely appropriate to the chocolate here, as while it does have bitter and sour tones, they're all curve, no edge. Similarly, the spices are complex but blend entirely. Think of, say, a good oatmeal cookie or pumpkin pie, which should taste redolent of autumnal spices rather than separate cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, and so on—they just have an aura of warmth that lingers pleasantly, in this case for a rather long time. I do think the nutmeg is standing out and perhaps the orange (we're not talking citrus here, but rather heady, aromatic orange oil), whereas I don't get a lot of cinnamon, and to my taste buds vanilla is more backup than headliner. So some flavors are louder than others, but they harmonize well.

Conclusion: Green & Black's Maya Gold isn't challenging, but as an everyday flavored chocolate its spice and balance excels.

Leysieffer Berry (Beeren)

100g bar

Ingredients: Sugar, cocoa mass, dried berries (cranberries, sour cherries, blueberries), cocoa butter, soy lecithin

Corporate Info: (Copied from 6/9/12; see that post for more) Leysieffer was founded in 1909 and began making chocolate truffles in 1936. The company is still family-operated, but it now includes 19 confectionary shops throughout Germany as well as a half dozen “bistros” serving cake and whatnot. And if you're really curious, you can order its products online.

Today's Bar: Berry. Ordinarily I wouldn't have selected this from Leysieffer's more intriguing choices, because we in the U.S. see so many “mixed berry” drinks, yogurts, candies, and so on. The difference is that this bar isn't our lovely but common strawberry-raspberry-blackberry; instead, it's blueberry, which is popular here but not in chocolate; cranberry, which we mostly associate with Thanksgiving and plain “craisins”; and sour cherries, which we usually see only in pies but are very common in German jams and desserts. That hit my “novelty” button, so I went with it.

Appearance: Unlike the other Leysieffer bars I brought home, this one has large, irregular chunks visible under the chocolate on the back and revealed in cross-section.

Smell: Basically just plain chocolate, which makes sense given that the berries are intact.

Taste: Flavor is sweet chocolate plus sweet, just slightly tart berries, and texture is Leysieffer's smooth, slightly waxy base with chewy, moist chunks of whole berry; individual bites are likely to be mostly chocolate with a little fruit for additional texture and flavor. As I've said before, I think Leysieffer's 55% cacao base is a fairly ideal match for more ethereal flavors like elderflower and lavender, but here it doesn't work for me, and there's a lot of it. The dominant, sweet chocolate and rather sweet berries prevent me from appreciating the three particular fruits included here, reminding me of why I love Green & Black's cherry bar, with its darker chocolate and plentiful, sweet-sour fruit. I'd like more fruit here, but mostly this is an issue of what the eater considers “balanced”: For me, the sugar here is getting in the way of the rest of the experience, though for others it may be exactly right, making this a satisfying bar they want to return to again and again. So it goes.

Cranberry + sour cherry + blueberry + chocolate conclusion: Inconclusive, since I couldn't get past the sweetness to really appreciate the fruit.