Trader Joe's Takes Flight: A Dark Chocolate Tasting Odyssey, Part II

 

Corporate Info: (Altered from 10/6/12) Quirky-gourmet grocery store Trader Joe's tends to be hit or miss, with some products being regular purchases for years, some becoming favorites and then disappearing from shelves, and some straight up disappointing. I've had similarly mixed results with their chocolate, but there's constant turnover, they contract with a whole assortment of manufacturers, and they aim for reasonable price points, so it's worth it to keep trying. There isn't much else 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.

Today's Bar: An assortment! This “Dark Chocolate Tasting Odyssey” is in the same line as the bar with toffee, walnuts, and pecans and the caramel-filled bar with black sea salt, but it includes seven separate and interesting bars! Two are 2oz versions of full-sized products, the salted caramel bar I've already reviewed and a coconut caramel one I still intend to review, so I won't cover them here. Further, you can buy each of those separately, and I've seen both in stores off-and-on for the last year, so you can probably find them if you want them. In contrast, I've only seen this assortment once, so I'm going to cover it in a two-part mega review rather than stretching it out over five posts.

So what, then, are today's bars? Every bar in the assortment is in 70% cacao, and aside from the two caramel-filled ones discussed above, all are regular chocolate with inclusions. Last week I looked at coffee & cocoa nibs and chili & cinnamon; today is even more interesting, with Almond Ginger, Orange Hibiscus, and Salt & Pepper Potato Chip!

Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Chocolate Bar 70% Almond Ginger

2oz (57g) bar

Ingredients: Chocolate liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla, almonds, ginger, cane sugar, salt

18g sugar/57g serving (31.6% by wt.)

Appearance: Again, plain, slightly purply chocolate, with raised almond pieces on the back and flecks of white almond in cross-section.

Smell: I get the ginger, actually, in the form of something spicy and fragrant within the light, nutty chocolate.

Taste: Saltier than I expected, with crunchy almond slivers and tiny bursts of bright crystallized ginger. All three come in separately, so each bite varies in terms of texture and flavor. The chocolate is still reasonably bland, a little chalky, and sweet, but this bar is more about the inclusions so it works out.

Conclusion: Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Chocolate Bar 70% Almond Ginger has varied flavor and texture within okay chocolate.

Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Chocolate Bar 70% Orange Hibiscus

2oz (57g) bar

Ingredients: Chocolate liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla, hibiscus powder, orange oil, tea: elderberry, apples, hibiscus, rosehip, kiwi, strawberry, sunflower petals, rose, corn flower, raspberry, passionfruit, natural flavors

18g sugar/57g serving (31.6% by wt.)

Appearance: Again, plain, slightly purply chocolate.

Smell: Cohesive but complex fruit, ranging from fragrant and perfumey to sweet-tart.

Taste: Hm. The chalkiness of the chocolate base doesn't work here, as it contrasts poorly with the fruit flavor. Aside from that, very fruity and sweet-tart, leaning toward sweet, with tiny crunches, probably the hibiscus powder. I think I can taste the exotic spice of the orange oil, and aside from that it very much reminds me of the sorts of fruit teas that use hibiscus as a foundation, bright and tart and layered. It also works well with the mild chocolate, though I do think it could stand up to a darker, more sour-bitter-beany variety. Unfortunately, the contrast with the texture is awfully weird, and that's what gets to me in the end.

Conclusion: Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Chocolate Bar 70% Orange Hibiscus is complexly fruity, with a chalkiness that contrasts oddly with the flavoring.

Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Chocolate Bar 70% Salt & Pepper Potato Chip

2oz (57g) bar

Ingredients: Chocolate liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla, organic clarified butter, sea salt, potatoes, safflower and/or sunflower oil, rice flour, black pepper, white pepper, yeast extract, garlic powder, onion powder, citric acid, black pepper oil, jalapeño powder

18g sugar/57g serving (31.6% by wt.)

Appearance: Again, plain, slightly purply chocolate.

Smell: Salty and savory on top of light, nutty chocolate.

Taste: Neat! There's the crispy crunch of the potato chips, along with their light, savory flavor (these are “salt and pepper” potato chips, which also means other flavor punchers like yeast extract and garlic and onion powders), a nice amount of salt and pepper...it actually works really well. Again, this chocolate has some unpleasant chalkiness, but it can be overlooked with this inclusion and the mild flavor works much better than would something more “chocolatey,” whose bitter and sour notes would probably contrast poorly and/or overwhelm the savory notes.

Conclusion: Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Chocolate Bar 70% Salt & Pepper Potato Chip is surprisingly full of potato chips, and their texture and savory flavor works well with the mild chocolate.

Trader Joe's Takes Flight: A Dark Chocolate Tasting Odyssey, Part I

Corporate Info: (Copied from 1/12/13) Quirky-gourmet grocery store Trader Joe's tends to be hit or miss, with some products being regular purchases for years, some becoming favorites and then disappearing from shelves, and some straight up disappointing. I've had similarly mixed results with their chocolate, but there's constant turnover, they contract with a whole assortment of manufacturers, and they aim for reasonable price points, so it's worth it to keep trying. There isn't much else 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.

Today's Bar: An assortment! This “Dark Chocolate Tasting Odyssey” is in the same line as the bar with toffee, walnuts, and pecans and the caramel-filled bar with black sea salt, but it includes seven separate and interesting bars! Two are 2oz versions of full-sized products, the salted caramel bar I've already reviewed and a coconut caramel one I still intend to review, so I won't cover them here. Further, you can buy each of those separately, and I've seen both in stores off-and-on for the last year, so you can probably find them if you want them. In contrast, I've only seen this assortment once, so I'm going to cover it in a two-part mega review rather than stretching it out over five posts.

So what, then, are today's bars? Every bar in the assortment is in 70% cacao, and aside from the two caramel-filled ones discussed above, all are regular chocolate with inclusions. Today I'm looking at Coffee & Cocoa Nib and Chili & Cinnamon.

Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Chocolate Bar 70% Coffee & Cocoa Nib

2oz (57g) bar

Ingredients: Chocolate liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla, cocoa nibs, coffee beans

17g sugar/57g serving (29.8% by wt.)

Appearance: Straight brown, i.e. not reddish or orangey, and mostly matte. The back shows a few small, raised pieces of what I'm guessing is cocoa nib.

Smell: Sweet and nutty, with barely a hint of coffee.

Taste: That's pretty good! The texture is more chalky than waxy, but with the intriguing grit of coffee grounds and crushed cocoa nibs. Flavor is sweet (note: I haven't been eating much sugar lately) and nutty, not especially complex, with the fatty flavor of cocoa butter and and a light, lingering coffee taste. More latte than espresso.

Conclusion: Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Chocolate Bar 70% Coffee & Cocoa Nib offers some grit for texture and a light, creamy coffee flavor.

Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Chocolate Bar 70% Chili & Cinnamon

2oz (57g) bar

Ingredients: Chocolate liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla, ancho chili powder, cinnamon, guajillo chili powder, cayenne pepper

18g sugar/57g serving (31.6% by wt.)

Appearance: As with the coffee bar, the base used for this chocolate is a deeper, more purply brown than the also-common reddish or orangey, and has little gloss. The back surface is mottled with very small raised bumps.

Smell: Ooh, I totally get both chili and cinnamon! Not strongly, but still. Again, the chocolate is light and nutty.

Taste: Again, a little chalky, with chew. Then I get the prickle of the cayenne, a low level of the other chilis (I'm not sure I could tease out the flavors), and finally a surprising amount of cinnamon compared with other, similar bars I've tried. I don't know if they used ground cinnamon or if it's just the chalkiness of the chocolate itself, but overall it's a little too powdery for my taste. On the other hand, it's still pretty neat to taste serious cinnamon flavor in my chocolate, and along with the lasting heat of chili in the back of my throat.

Conclusion: Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Chocolate Bar 70% Chili & Cinnamon has prickly, lingering heat, significant cinnamon flavor, and a texture that's a bit too powdery for me.

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.

Trader Joe's Organic Stone Ground 70% Cacao Extra Dark Chocolate

2.6oz (73.7g) in two discs

Ingredients: Organic cocoa nibs, o. cane sugar

10g sugar/37g serving (27% by wt.)

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: 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, 70% 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 70% Cacao Puro Chocolate Mexicano, which I haven't reviewed here. The ingredients are practically the same (TJ's lists “cocoa nibs” to Taza's website's “roasted cacao beans”), but TJ's is only $3.99, while Taza's is $4.50 on its website and $5-6 in stores around my city. Unfortunately I don't have the Taza product here, but I can review TJ's discs alone. So how are they?

Appearance: Medium brown with yellow undertones. Glossy on the surface but grainy (i.e. stone-ground) in cross-section, with visible sugar crystals.

Smell: Sweet, dried/”brown”, light brown sugar. Not molasses-y, but with some caramelized, raisiny elements.

Taste: Texture is gritty and fudgy. Flavor isn't especially dark, but has a light spiciness, like nutmeg and ginger—that's the dried, “brown” smell I was getting. Slightly sour, little bitterness. The flavor's mild complexity and texture's variation makes this easy to keep eating.

Conclusion: Trader Joe's Organic Stone Ground 70% Cacao Extra Dark Chocolate is gritty, fudgy, and relatively mild, making it easy to munch.

Trader Joe's 72% Cacao Dark Chocolate

1.65oz (47g) bar

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa powder, soy lecithin, cocoa solids

13g sugar/47g serving (27.7% by wt.)

Corporate Info: 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: Just a random 72% cacao bar with no special selling points other than a small “Imported from Belgium.” It's worth noting that, unlike most chocolate bars I review, this one lists cocoa powder in the ingredients. I wonder what that will do to the flavor, if anything?

Appearance: Small and blocky, in a very medium brown with the normal level of gloss.

Smell: Roasted, bitter, kind of harsh.

Taste: Texture is waxy, melting into thick and somewhat chalky, the latter of which I expect has to do with the cocoa powder. Flavor is intense and bitter, with undertones of butter and nuts. The bitterness actually has some complexity, so even though it's a little harsh it's not totally all over the place and doesn't have super-off-putting edges, so honestly it's not all that bad, but it's amazing the difference between this 72% bar and many others with similar levels of cacao. Cocoa powder wouldn't be my first choice of chocolate bar ingredients, and I wouldn't go out of my way to buy this again, but if you relish bitterness it's worth a shot.

Conclusion: Trader Joe's 72% Cacao Dark Chocolate is strong and bitter, but passable if you like that sort of thing.

Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Bar Toffee with Walnuts and Pecans

3oz (85g) bar

Ingredients: Chocolate liquor, cane sugar, cocoa butter, butter, corn syrup, walnuts, pecans, soy lecithin, water, vanilla, sea salt

14g sugar/43g serving (32.6% by wt.)

Sometime after I tried last week's Trader Joe's caramel-filled bar, I happened to be back at the store and spied the other bar in the same line, Toffee with Walnuts and Pecans, though this one contains inclusions rather than a filling.

Appearance: First of all, I love these box designs, a crowded and colorful riff on the detailed, Victorian-style illustrations Trader Joe's uses on its promotional materials. That aside, the bar is thin and flat, with a uniform, glossy surface, solid brown color, and little bumps visible on the back.

Smell: Not particularly strong. Pleasant, rounded, fruity.

Taste: This bar contains small nuggets of toffee and flecks of nut. The chocolate is good in a generic way, so while it's not complex or intense or smoky or anything else you might like personally, it's also pretty dark and doesn't have any “off” flavors or no flavor at all, and I suppose that's a good way to appeal to a lot of people. The toffee pieces are large and salty-buttery enough to be enjoyable (I'm looking at you, Endangered Species), and the small nut bits are pretty forgettable, but given how many people buy chocolate bars containing little pieces of delicately flavored nuts, maybe others get more out of them than I do.

Conclusion: Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Bar Toffee with Walnuts and Pecans doesn't stand out, but it's inoffensive and fun, and for $1.99 you get a gourmet-ish bar in a nice box.

Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Bar Caramel with Black Sea Salt

3oz (85g) bar 
Ingredients: Chocolate liquor, cane sugar, cocoa butter, cream, corn syrup, soy lecithin, water, vanilla, Hawaiian black sea salt, sea salt 
13g sugar/43g serving (30.2% by wt.)

This 70% cacao Trader Joe's bar is basically the exact same thing as last week's several-dollars-pricier Vosges bar, except it varies just enough (not organic cream, a sprinkling of salt on the back, higher sugar content) that Vosges clearly doesn't produce it, at least not as an identical copy. I haven't been impressed by Trader Joe's chocolate in the past, but who knows who makes it or how many manufacturers the grocer has used over the years, not to mention this is a filled bar rather than a single-origin, super-dark bar that relies heavily on its beans, so I might feel entirely differently today. It's hard to go wrong with caramel-filled chocolate.

Appearance: Big, thin, flat, matte, uniformly textured, a solid, medium-dark brown. As with last week's caramel-filled treat, this thin, sharply molded bar holds its soft filling well. 

(It only broke just before I took the photo above, when I caught it on the wrapper inside the box.)

Smell: Mild, slightly spicy, dried fruit, no sharpness.

Taste: This is the Bam! version of the Vosges bar, with a less interesting chocolate, just-a-bit-thicker and significantly but not unpleasantly sweeter caramel, and to my mind one major improvement, that restrained if uneven sprinkling of salt on the back that hits the tongue quickly and livens up all the flavors. Without it—as I said, it's unevenly applied—the whole package isn't nearly as interesting, because there isn't as much to the caramel or the chocolate, but most people will find this an entirely acceptable substitute for the more expensive Vosges bar.

Conclusion: Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Bar Caramel with Black Sea Salt isn't super-complex, but it's pretty darn good for the price.

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.