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.

Alter Eco Dark Blackout

2.82oz (80g) bar

Ingredients: Organic fair trade cocoa liquor, oft. cocoa butter, oft. cane sugar, oft. vanilla

6g sugar/40g serving (15% by wt.)

Corporate Info: Alter Eco reminds me of Equal Exchange, in that both companies import several organic crops (in this case cacao, quinoa, rice, and sugar) from developing nations, and both attempt to build a new model of globalized business by working closely with the farmers who produce the goods. The globalization goes up the chain, too, as the chocolate is processed in Switzerland and the co-founders are French, American, and Australian. I'd like to think more of these sorts of companies can prove profitable! Chocolate-wise, Alter Eco sells its variation on the standards, using orange peel instead of oil, adding coconut to its toffee, and even mixing in crunchy “quinoa-rice crisps.”

Today's Bar: Blackout, Alter Eco's 85% bar.

Appearance: You know, this is kind of pretty. It's just scored into a large grid, but the molding is clean and the imprint of the Alter Eco logo makes it look a little more “done” than some very simply molded bars. The color is a deep reddish brown with a light gloss.

Smell: Also simple, warm and red-berry tart.

Taste: Crunchy, then a quick melter—super smooth and cocoa-buttery. Ooh, very bitter on the front end, tannic but not heavy, like a light-bodied red wine. There's red fruit in there, tartness and the like, but really the tannins and the smoothness are what stand out for me.

Conclusion: Alter Eco Dark Blackout is super-smooth, a little tart, and dryly bitter like a light red wine.

Shaman Organic Chocolates 82% Cacao Extra Dark Chocolate

2oz (57g) bar

Ingredients: Organic sugar, o. chocolate liquor, o. cocoa butter, o. soy lecithin, o. vanilla

5g sugar/28.5g serving (17.5% by wt.)

Corporate Info: As of this writing Shaman's website is under construction, but the bar packaging explains that the point of the company is to support Mexico's indigenous Huichol people. I've found a lot of positive commentary on assorted unfamiliar-to-me websites and an A rating by the Better World Shopper; I hope this organic, fair trade chocolate's actual practices live up to the hype.

Appearance: Small bar, reddish brown, glossy, with little air bubbles in the corners.

Smell: Not strong but bright and fresh, like unripe stone fruit.

Taste: Raw, sourish, a little harsh but muted, not off-putting. Some tannins but not heavy, like a light red wine. Chalky texture, drying. I'm struck by how different this is from last week's Michel Cluizel bar; chocolate is so interesting!

Conclusion: Shaman Organic Chocolates 82% Cacao Extra Dark Chocolate is light, fresh, and dry.

Valrhona Abinao Chocolat Noir Dark Chocolate 85% Cacao

70g (2.46 oz) bar

Ingredients: Cocoa beans, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla

5g sugar/40g serving (12.5% by wt.)

Several months ago I received this bar from a friend, opened it, ate a bit, put it aside, and didn't get back to it until now. What I'm saying is it might not be quite at its best, so whatever I think about it today might not be completely fair. Still, we're talking Valrhona here [link warning: lots of flash and irritating music], so I didn't want to leave it off the blog entirely.

In the intervening months the bar has bloomed a bit on the edge, but otherwise it's still the same dark medium-brown with a very dull surface. Up close it smells like the chocolate version of dark roast coffee, toasted and almost smoky. It breaks into hard, brittle pieces but then melts quickly into something delicate and smooth. Though it's still strongly flavored, the light creaminess helps balance the sour and tannic elements: This flavor might have been called pungent, but instead it's merely intense. The finish is mouth-drying and bitter, not my favorite final impression but interesting anyway.

Conclusion: Valrhona Abinao Chocolat Noir Dark Chocolate 85% Cacao brings a contradiction in textures and a just-barely-tamed intensity.

Vivani Dark Chocolate with 85% Cocoa

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Organic cocoa liquor, o. cocoa butter, o. raw cane sugar

6g sugar/42 g serving

Vivani's 85% cacao bar is another organic, pure chocolate + sugar mix, but the German company also produces interesting flavors like green tea and lemon (and far more in Europe). I've had the green tea one before, and while I didn't love it, I respected that it really did taste of bitter matcha powder.

The 85% bar smells great. I mean, if you're not trying to be extra observant it just smells like chocolate, but up close it's actually pungent and earthy—very intriguing. The flavor and texture aren't a combination I'm used to: The consistency is super-rich, the kind that feels like it's melting right into smooth cocoa butter, which I usually associate with mild chocolate, but bitter definitely predominates here. It's not at  all sour, and the other flavors aren't especially intense aside from the astringency. It's all a bit too much for my liking, but still interesting. I wonder if it might be good for baking?

Conclusion: Vivani Dark Chocolate with 85% Cocoa is smooth and bitter.

[Note: I forgot to take the photo until after I'd opened the bar. Obviously.]

Baratti e Milano Puro Cioccolato Extra Fondente 88%

75g bar

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, natural vanilla extract

Baratti & Milano's Extra Bitter 88% bar was a gift from a lovely old friend who knows my taste for dark chocolate. I opened the box, the kind bound with an elasticated gold cord tied in a little bow at one corner, to find four different high-end bars. I'm starting with something Italian.

This is another wide, thin, flat bar, in a deep black-brown with a dull finish. The fragrance is kind of fascinating, less chocolate than like a spicy perfume heady with vanilla. I don't wear perfume, but I might if I were able to get my hands on one that smelled like this.

“Bitter” is an apt term for the chocolate, though it's not the pungent kind that makes you grimace—it's actually surprisingly smooth, in both texture and flavor. The bitterness comes on slowly and builds gradually, finally revealing a hint of sugar. It brings you as close to the bean as you can and still be eating chocolate, processed to be palatable and with just a hint of sugar for balance.

This is some of the darkest-tasting chocolate I've eaten. Another 88% bar I've tried (Endangered Species' Black Panther bar) is sweeter and more accessible, so it's not just the cacao content; maybe it's in the choice of bean, or in the processing. Because of how bitter it is I probably won't be buying this myself, but it's a very good special occasion bar, smooth and sweet enough to be more than plain cacao, but only just.

Conclusion: Baratti e Milano Puro Cioccolato Extra Fondente 88% is barely sweet, surprisingly smooth, a high-quality super-super-dark chocolate.

[Note: I couldn't find a website for Baratti e Milano, so the above link is to this bar on Amazon.]

Trader Joe’s The Dark Chocolate Lover’s Chocolate Bar 85%

3.5oz (100g) in two individually wrapped 1.75oz bars

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, natural vanilla flavor

6g sugar/40g serving (15% by wt.)

I don’t have the best track record with Trader Joe’s chocolate. On second thought that’s not entirely honest, as I’ve only had trouble recently. Even when they’re not especially high quality, TJ’s candies are often addictive (try the mini peanut butter cups!), and for a short time when I was experimenting with 100% cacao bars—in very small doses—TJ’s carried a particular baking bar that I enjoyed to a surprising degree. It’s with my current diet’s very dark bars that I haven’t been so impressed. One memorable disappointment was the 73% cacao bar with almonds, the one in the pink foil wrapper, which sat partially eaten in The Chocolate Basket for ages before I finally tossed it. I couldn’t bring myself to review it because I’d have to eat it again, and I began this blog for fun; suffering for journalistic integrity is a somewhat lower priority. Thus, despite Trader Joe’s relatively low prices I’ve gravitated toward other brands, and this 85% cacao bar remained unopened in the basket until this week, when I decided to bite the bullet (and the bar--har har).

The good news is that it’s pretty decent. Inside the cardboard box are two smallish, flat bars, so you can open one and leave the other in its airtight plastic wrapper. The texture is as creamy and  smooth as 85% cacao bars tend to get, without any distracting chalkiness or brittle flakes. It has a sort of thin, nutty sweetness that might appeal to some, and it’s fairly bitter, a bit too much for me but interesting nonetheless. Both of those flavors aren’t quite my bag, so I don’t think this bar will be giving any repeat performances here, but I suspect there are chocolate lovers who would really enjoy it.

Conclusion: Trader Joe’s 85% bar is interesting but not to my taste.

P.S. I'm labeling this origin: Colombia, but since it doesn't explicitly say "single origin" on the box, it's possible they mean that it includes chocolate from Colombia. No promises.

Blanxart Dark Chocolate origin Ghana 80% Cacao

1.7oz (48g) bar

Ingredients: Chocolate liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla, lecithin

10g sugar/48g serving (20.8% by wt.)

[Note: Blanxart’s website isn’t the most user-friendly, so most of the links here are to outside sites (none of which I necessarily endorse).]

I’ve found Spanish chocolatier Blanxart’s products intriguing in the past, so I bought three different bars to review. One, the Chocolate a la Taza bar intended for making hot chocolate, turned out to be clearly mislabeled in terms of sugar content (among other things), so while I like it, it will have to be eaten by someone else. Said Someone Else polished off the entire bar of Dark Chocolate 85% with Nibs before I had a chance to taste it and then asked me to buy another.  Take from that what you will, and I’ll officially review the bar another time. I did still have most of the small Dark Chocolate origin Ghana 80%, which also comes in a full 3.5oz (100g) size, so by default it’ll be my first review of Blanxart’s chocolate.

Unfortunately, the fat little 1.7 oz bar presents a problem right off. It’s a dense, hard chocolate molded into what are essentially scored blocks (rather than thin tiles), so how do you eat it? You could chip away at it with a knife or chocolate chipper, as from a big block for baking, but it doesn’t seem like that was what this bar was made for. It’s not waxy, so you can’t bite through it cleanly; it fractures and comes off in crunchy chunks. I did resort to this option (trying to avoid the alternative, sloppy gnawing), but “crunchy” isn’t an ideal texture for plain chocolate, and with each brittle bite I got little chocolate crumbs on my shirt. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and consider that perhaps it’s just too chilly now, and this bar might soften up in the summer heat.

Flavor-wise, I want to be a fan, but I can’t. To my taste buds this bar is just too sweet, even given the relatively low amount of sugar on the label. Bars with milk, or perhaps a different balance of flavors, seem to meld chocolate and sugar well. Here the two seemed separate, with a thin but sickly sweetness hitting me right away, staying throughout, and even hanging around minutes after I’d swallowed. The chocolate underneath tastes like it must be interesting, not de-fanged ersatz chocolate, but I had a hard time appreciating it because the sugar was so dominant. Adding to the problem slightly is the texture: Once crunched, the chocolate at least melts quickly in the mouth, but it’s very creamy in a way that adds to the sense of syrupy sweetness.

I’ve had some great bars from Blanxart (often with too high a sugar content for me at present) and I hope to review more. I’m sorry to say I didn’t like this one, but hey, at least I didn’t spring for the full size!

Conclusion: Blanxart Dark Chocolate origin Ghana 80% Cacao is too sweet and difficult to eat. 

Green & Black’s Organic Dark Chocolate 85% Cocoa Content

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Organic chocolate liquor, o. cocoa butter, o. fat-reduced cocoa powder, o. raw cane sugar, o. vanilla extract, soy lecithin, o. whole milk powder

6g sugar/40g serving (15% by wt.)

Green & Black’s 85% bar is one of my favorites, a mainstay of the Chocolate Basket and the main reason I have an abiding fondness for Green & Black’s. I don’t know why it took me this long to review it.

The mouthfeel of this bar is fairly waxy: It’s firm and very smooth, but I wouldn’t call it creamy. The flavor  is deep and fruity, with only a touch of bitterness and a minimum of the unpleasantly sour aftertaste of many other dark chocolates. As one might imagine of such a dark bar it’s not exactly sweet, but the lack of bitter and sour notes make it surprisingly easy to eat, and the depth of flavor makes it more interesting than, say, the Newman’s Own 70% bar.

Conclusion: Green & Black’s 85% bar has a mild complexity with few sharp edges. An easy eating chocolate for lovers of very dark bars.

P.S. Big player Cadbury bought Green & Black’s in 2005, but thus far it seems to have maintained Green & Black’s high quality. Now that chocolate giant Hershey’s has made a play for Cadbury, fans of Green & Black’s might wonder if the chocolate would suffer under new ownership. Stay tuned…


[Update: It's Kraft! I have no idea what this will do to Green & Black's--we'll just have to see.]

Taza Chocolate Stone Ground Organic Chocolate 80% Dark

3oz (85g) bar

Ingredients: Cacao beans (Dominican Republic), cane sugar, cocoa butter, whole vanilla beans. (All certified organic.)

I found this bar at a specialty chocolate shop, and at $8.00 ($2.66/oz) it was one of the most expensive I’ve considered. (I later saw it for a few cents less elsewhere.) I was able to taste it in the store, and I elected to buy it despite its high price because of the stone-ground texture, which was unlike that of other chocolate I’d eaten.

Taza Chocolate’s 80% bar is gritty and almost dusty; whatever roasting and other processing may go into it, to me the texture makes it taste more “raw” than smoother, creamier bars. The flavor is also somewhat challenging, because it has a clear sour note, coming across as bright rather than deeply fruity, with a bit of a bitter aftertaste. (I’ll be interested to see if this flavor profile will show up in other single-source bars from the Dominican Republic.) Because of the texture, the sugar's sweet counterpoint is distinguishable from the sour and bitter flavors—it’s almost as though the bar's flavors sit side by side in a mixture rather than being melded into one taste experience.

Conclusion: Taza Chocolate’s 80% bar is challenging and relatively expensive, so it’s not for everyone and won’t be a Chocolate Basket staple. On the other hand, if you’re interested in trying something different I’d recommend searching it out. Besides, it’s just a chocolate bar--it’s not like you’ll have to skip a car payment for this sort of luxury.

*You can read more about Taza Chocolate’s bean-to-bar process here.

Godiva 85% Cacao Santo Domingo Dark Chocolate

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Chocolate, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla

5g sugar/40g serving (12.5% by wt.)

The Godiva bar is thinner and flatter than many of the other bars I’ve eaten, making it seem more “crunchy” and light for that reason alone, though the “snap” might be reduced in warmer weather. The chocolate is a bit waxy, with a hint of grit and powderiness. The flavor is mouth-filling and fruity, but not as heavy as some with similar cacao content, perhaps

because of the added cocoa butter.


Conclusion: This is a fine bar but nothing remarkable, so it probably won’t be making a reappearance in the chocolate basket.