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.

SunSpire Fair Trade Organic Baking Bar Unsweetened Chocolate

4oz (113g) bar

Ingredients: Organic fair trade unsweetened chocolate

I haven't bought a lot of SunSpire products, as they have that old-school health-food look about them that doesn't inspire (heh) tasty chocolate confidence. I'm finally trying this baking bar because it was on sale, I use a decent amount of chocolate, and I'd like to support organic and fair trade production when I can. That said, it's 100% cacao, so unless it's François Pralus it probably won't be a joy to eat as is.

Today I'm trying SunSpire's chocolate plain and in hot chocolate, which for me consists of chocolate, sugar, vanilla, and soy milk. You may make your cocoa differently, but since I drink it nearly daily using various chocolate bars and cocoa powders, I do have some basis for comparison.

Corporate Info: SunSpire's parent company is The Hain Celestial Group, owners of a huge range of health food brands, among them Greek Gods; Arrowhead Mills; Spectrum; Celestial Seasonings; Rice Dream, Soy Dream and WestSoy (milk replacers); Alba and Avalon Organics and Jāson (personal care products); and of course Hain Pure Foods. It's really big. Hain is headquartered in a town in Long Island, New York; customer service is in Celestial Seasonings' hometown of Boulder, Colorado; and Hain Celestial also operates in Canada and Europe.

Appearance: Very matte, washed-out brown.

Smell: Vivid, beany, tart, raw.

Taste: Bitter and chalky, leaving a chalky residue. It doesn't make much of an impression other than that texture and the bitterness hovering around it.

In Hot Chocolate: My cocoa with SunSpire unsweetened wasn't great, less because of flavor than because of the same chalky texture I tasted in the bar. It was like regular hot chocolate with additional chalk dust, which thickened the cocoa slightly and then, after I swallowed, lingered dryly on the inside of my mouth. Too bad.

Conclusion: SunSpire Fair Trade Organic Baking Bar Unsweetened Chocolate is more memorable for its weirdly chalky texture than its flavor.

Theo Organic 91% Dark Costa Rica

[Note: This is the re-post of a review that should have appeared (and did?) on May 12.]

3oz (84g) bar

Ingredients: Organic cocoa beans (Costa Rica), o. sugar, o. cocoa butter, o. ground vanilla bean

4g sugar/42g serving (9.5% by wt.)

Corporate Info: I've discussed Theo many times before. It's a bean-to-bar chocolatier here in Seattle, some bars are available nationwide, everything is organic and fair trade, Theo has an A rating from the Better World folks, etc etc. I've loved the confections but not always the dark chocolate. What will I think of this single-origin bar? (Note: I'm assuming this is the same as the one on the site, but with different packaging.)

Appearance: Orange-brown, and not as dark as you'd think.

Smell: Bitter and tannic, with some tropical banana.

Taste: In order of experience: Quite bitter, almost charred flavor I taste in the middle of my tongue. Texture is very smooth. Tart. I taste sweet on the very back and sides of my tongue. Basically, the flavor is stronger, weaker, or just different depending on the moment and where in the mouth we're talking about. Interesting.

Conclusion: Theo Organic 91% Dark Costa Rica is very dark and challenging, but it certainly isn't boring!

E. Guittard Nocturne 91% Cacao

2oz (56.7g) bar

Ingredients: Cacao beans, cocoa butter, cane sugar, soy lecithin, vanilla beans

5g sugar/57g serving (8.8% by wt.)

I'd heard of E. Guittard's chocolate via the reportedly high-quality baking wafers, though I never got around to buying any. Then I was given the chance to try the Nocturne bar courtesy of my generous Pralus donor, but I didn't feel like chocolate for a while (sacrilege!), so I've been working on this review for perhaps three weeks. Here goes...

The Nocture bar is small and thick, in a uniform, relatively matte basic brown. The aroma is quite nice, with dark, browned-caramel dried fruit: raisins, cherries, maybe figs. The taste is extremely dark and somewhat bitter but doesn't leave much impression otherwise, so I don't have much more to say about it other than that this may be why it took me so long to review the bar. On the other hand, a visitor tried some and rather liked it, a reminder of how personal taste in chocolate can be!

Conclusion: E. Guittard Nocture 91% Cacao is dark and bitter but not all that interesting.

François Pralus Le 100% Criollo

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Organic cocoa, o. cocoa butter

I was working on another review when the mail brought me a package from a thoughtful friend: François Pralus 100% cacao bar. What was I to do with such dark chocolate? I figured I couldn't review it, because without sugar, 100% cacao is bitter and sour. I also didn't want to bake it, drowning a relatively small amount of lovingly molded French cacao in butter and flour.

I unwrapped the foil, took a little sniff, then inhaled deeply: tropical, fruity, enveloping. So I tried a crumb, and this 100% cacao bar surprised me: it's not especially sour or bitter. It does have the expected acrid bite, but what predominates is the tropical fruit, not too flowery, something like pineapple or mango. The texture is more waxy than brittle, which I appreciate. This chocolate is complex but easy to eat—if you like 100% cacao, of course—because it's free of the sort of unpleasant edges that require dulling by sugar or milk.

Okay, I still wasn't about to eat an entire bar of unadulterated cacao. I discovered the solution in a leftover cup of heavy cream, and just for the heck of it, I tried it in two different but similar preparations. First I melted the bar with a bit of sugar. For one dessert, I whipped a small amount of the chocolate and sugar with half the cream to make an easy, soft, spoonable ganache. The rest of the chocolate mixture and cream (close to equal parts) I combined, refrigerated, scooped into balls, and rolled in cocoa powder to make truffles. In such a simple recipe inferior chocolate would have stood out, but these desserts tasted rich, pure, and dark.

Conclusion: For simple desserts that showcase high-quality chocolate, medium-bodied François Pralus Le 100% Criollo will not disappoint. 

Lindt Excellence 90% Cocoa Supreme Dark

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Chocolate, cocoa powder, cocoa butter, sugar, natural bourbon vanilla beans

3g sugar/40g serving (7.5% by wt.)

I put off writing this review mostly because I had computer trouble, but also because I knew I eventually had to write about Lindt’s 90% cacao bar. Unlike some of the bars I’ve reviewed it’s widely available, and it’s been sitting in The Chocolate Basket for ages, so I couldn’t ignore it. I bought it when I was eating even less sugar than I am now; in fact, I was so thrilled to find such a dark bar that I went ahead and bought two. I nibbled at one a bit but didn’t like it, so it just sat there, and now the unopened one taunts me, an unpalatable reminder of my hubris and consumerism and desperation. It’s safe to say that I’ve become biased: I hate this bar.

I’ve tried 99% and 100% cacao bars, and they usually have some bitter or sour taste. This has neither, which sounds good except I’m not sure what’s left. It’s all fruit, or deep wine flavors, but without the sweetness or perfume (caramel or citrus or what have you) or tannins or anything else but Dark. It’s a vacuum of flavor, a sucking, sinking feeling. Eating it doesn’t make me wince or gag, just scowl—from cheerleader to scold in one lingering bite. Oh, and it’s a bit chalky.


Conclusion: Yuck.

I don’t want to be down on Lindt, makers of everyone’s favorite drugstore luxury, the Lindor Truffle. I’ll be happy to try their other products. I’m just not sure what to do with the rest of this one…