Theo 70% Nutcracker Brittle

3oz (84g) bar
Ingredients: Organic fair trade cocoa beans, oft. sugar, o. corn syrup, oft. cocoa butter, water sea salt, baking soda, o. almonds, o. hazelnuts, o. ground vanilla bean
12g sugar/42g serving (28.6% by wt.)

Corporate Info: (Copied from 12/15/12) I've written about Theo Chocolate many times, and in short, it's a great Seattle company making bean-to-bar chocolate and creative, often seasonal confections (you'll see more in-store than online) that are organic and fair trade. You can visit Theo's retail store, order online, or find a selection of Theo's bars at upscale and health food stores nationwide. My only beef with Theo is that I tend to find its usual 70% dark chocolate base too sour as a match for flavorings, but that's a personal taste issue.

Today's Bar: 70% Nutcracker Brittle, another holiday bar that sounds like a slightly darker, non-milk, nutty version of last week's 62% salted toffee.

Appearance: Actually, compared to last week's, this is exactly what one might think: a little darker, with less white in the color and still a reddish, non-uniform base.

Smell: Really lovely--aromatic and beany/raw but not harsh.

Taste: First, the brittle is totally different from last week's salted butter toffee, more like tiny, crunchy nut pieces with just a hint of candy's crystalline texture. There's also not as much salt, which I think this could have used; the nut flavor is muted compared to the strong, sour and raw flavors of Theo's intense cacao. The most successful bites I get are those with larger brittle pieces, which stand out against the lower proportion of chocolate. 

Conclusion: Theo 70% Nutcracker Brittle is fine, but the nutty brittle's subtler flavors are dwarfed by the intense cacao.

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.

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.

Theo Organic Fair Trade Salted Almond Dark Chocolate 70% Cacao

3oz (84g) bar

Ingredients: Organic fair trade cocoa beans, oft. sugar, o. almonds, oft. cocoa butter, sea salt, ground vanilla bean

12g sugar/42g serving (28.6% by wt.)

Corporate Info: I've reviewed and discussed Theo many times before, so I'll just direct you backwards for company info. I review Theo often for many reasons: It's a good company, it's local here so I see the bars around a lot, it does a lot with dark chocolate, and it adds new bars from time to time so there's often something new to try. Today's bar is new, but not too long ago they came out with a version in 45% milk chocolate and I highly enjoyed it, so I'm anxious to try this one! My fear is that I won't like it the way I don't like many of their 70% bars, in that the base is too sour for me personally. I keep coming back to Theo's 70% bars in part because I love the company and in part because I hold out hope that one of these days, the inclusion and the tart base will turn out to be a perfect match, at least to my taste buds. One more go-around...

Appearance: Low-gloss, very reddish brown with lighter flecks visible under the surface.

Smell: Tangy like red fruit and yogurt, a little nutty.

Taste: The chocolate is indeed somewhat tart, but as I chew it, somehow only parts of what I'm tasting register as sour! The rest of each bite is more balanced among sour, bitter, and tannic, as in a light-bodied red wine, and there's just enough sugar to meet those flavors. The mellow flavor of the small chunks of almond doesn't come out much at all in comparison to all that, but their al dente firmness provides some low-contrast texture. Finally, the tiny flakes of salt contribute a flavor that's less saline and more like centers of heightened chocolate intensity, which add to the general sense of complexity. This wouldn't be a favorite for me, but for those who like this complex flavor profile, it's pretty interesting.

Conclusion: Theo Organic Fair Trade Salted Almond Dark Chocolate 70% Cacao has a lot going on: the sourness, bitterness, and tannins of a light red wine, the texture of almond pieces, and heightened flavor around salt crystals.

Whole Foods Dark Chocolate Pear & Almond

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Chocolate liquor, sugar, almonds, cocoa butter, butter oil, inulin, pear, natural flavoring, soy lecithin

14g sugar/38g serving (36.8% by wt.)

Corporate Info: See two weeks ago, both this section and the introduction. This week's bar isn't organic or whatever else; it's Whole Foods' attempt at upscale chocolate flavors. So how do they do?

Appearance: Flat, lightly textured, deep reddish brown, with pale flecks under the surface. A cross-section reveals slivered almonds and, due to slightly different color and shape, what must be tiny pieces of pear.

Smell: In both color and smell this is actually dark, probably at least 60%, though the package doesn't say. Light, nutty, winey. No pear smell as far as I can tell.

Taste: What stands out is pear, which based on the ingredients is just in the pieces (“natural flavoring” is in parentheses next to pear, along with inulin and dehydrated pear; there's no “flavoring” in the chocolate itself), but it jumps out like liberally applied pear extract, sweet, with a candyish texture but a real ripe pear vibe, as in a pear Jelly Belly. Almonds are more low-key and textural, and chocolate isn't in front but does have some winey flavor, so it doesn't get lost.

Conclusion: Whole Foods Dark Chocolate Pear & Almond isn't for lovers of super dark chocolate, but it does provide pear flavor, almond texture, and a legitimate dark chocolate foundation.

Chocolove Almonds & Sea Salt in Dark Chocolate 55% Cocoa

3.2oz (90g) bar

Ingredients: Cocoa liquor, sugar, almonds, cocoa butter, sea salt, soy lecithin, vanilla

11g sugar/30g serving (36.7% by wt.)

When I was flipping through my bag of to-be-reviewed bars a couple weeks ago, I found that I had bought several flavored with sea salt and decided to review them as a pack. I started with the Vosges and Trader Joe's caramel bars, followed a tangent with another Trader Joe's bar, and am back this week with Chocolove Almonds & Sea Salt in 55% Cocoa.

Meta-moment: I've been violating the old maximum-1/3-sugar rule for two reasons: 1) Health-wise, I can do that now, and 2) many interesting bars come in dark chocolate bases that are a little higher in sugar than my usual. Unsurprisingly, I often find them too sweet for my taste, but with common brands like Chocolove, I have frequently seen the whole product line on sale and really wanted to give some fun flavors a try. So now I am.

Corporate Info: 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 doesn't say), hasn't yet been bought by a giant conglomerate, and is supposedly working with these guys to source its chocolate from well-treated cocoa farmers and communities. On the other hand, the chocolate isn't officially organic or fair trade, and Chocolove 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.

Appearance: Chocolove's usual quilted-looking, heart-topped shape, kind of a greyish brown, very glossy, bumpy on the back.

Smell: Sweet, nutty.

Taste: Okay, yeah, it's too sweet for me and not super-dark, which makes it hard to pick out the other flavors. What I can say is that you get entire halved almonds and a well-incorporated, non-dominant saltiness. The wrapper says something about salt crystals, and that very well may be true, but they must be pretty small; while it doesn't taste like the salt is dissolved into the chocolate, there's more uniformity to it than I've found in other salty bars.

Conclusion: Chocolove Almonds & Sea Salt in Dark Chocolate 55% Cocoa didn't taste like anything special to me, but if you like almonds and salt in a relatively light dark chocolate, maybe it would be great to you.

German Chocolate: Filled Bars from Coppeneur and zotter

Coppeneur and zotter [sic] are both companies I'd never seen before that make a ton of neat-sounding bars, but since it was early in the trip and I didn't want to commit much money or luggage space, I chose just one of each, Coppeneur's Black Beer “Black Abbot” (Schwarzbier Schwarzer Abt; click the link, then “English,” “Products,” and “Praliné Chocolates” to see the varieties in the right-hand column) and zotter's Almond with Grappa Raisins (Mandel mit Grapparosinen). Though I didn't notice it at the time (it is in fact mentioned on the wrappers), both of these are ganache-filled truffle bars rather than chocolate with inclusions.

A few brief notes on the companies: Coppeneur is German and makes not only filled bars but also single-origin chocolate, flavored bars, confections, a few organic (bio) items, and so on—and if you'd like to order from Coppeneur, this Canadian importer claims to be able to hook you up. What I saw in-store was maybe a dozen of the 30 filled Praliné bars, which all come in neat flavors like Blue Poppy Seed and Wasabi & Algae, and I figured Black Beer was interesting and a fun memento of Germany. zotter is Austrian and entirely organic and fair trade. The aesthetic is goofy and fun and the offerings are even more varied than Coppeneur's, not only bars and confections but also ganache in syringes, pink and lilac “gay and lesbian chocolate,” and chocolate liqueurs. Again I saw only, say, 15 of what is a much larger product line of “hand scooped” layered and coated bars. The fillings range from Pink Grapefruit to Port Wine, Celeriac, and Truffles, and with relatively few choices I went with Almond with Grappa Raisin. Looking at Coppeneur's and zotter's websites now, I'd love to try more from both companies.

Coppeneur Black Beer “Black Abbot”

75g (2.64oz) bar

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, beer brandy, black beer “Schwarzer Abt” (water, barley malt, yeast, hops, invert sugar syrup), dextrose, butter, glucose syrup, cream, whole milk powder, natural flavoring, soy lecithin, vanilla.

The thing about ganaches/truffles, in bar form or not, is that the fat in the cream and/or cocoa butter mutes flavors; in my experience, the filling is usually super-rich and otherwise relatively subtle. I like big old punches of flavor in my chocolate (perhaps due to my American/Hawaiian palate), and I'm still learning to appreciate nuance.

That's what's going on here: mild dark (70%) chocolate encasing a subtly complex, stiff, fatty center, and I'm having trouble picking out the flavors. Coppeneur lists the tasting notes of its bars at the bottom of the label; here you can see this bar categorized as “spicy” and “sharp” (the site I use translates würzig “full-flavored” as well as “spicy”), but I'm not sure I'm able to taste these. Just think of them as complex and subtle.

What can we learn about beer-flavored chocolate from it? Well, maybe I'm imposing based on the name, but I'd venture that while this isn't at all bitter or alcoholic, it is sort of malty, like the flavors you get in beer after you get past the bitterness, and that's kind of fun.

zotter Almond with Grappa Raisins

 

70g bar

Ingredients: Organic fair trade raw cane sugar, oft. cocoa mass, o. almonds, oft. cocoa butter, o. raisins, o. whole milk powder, o. butter, o. Grappa, oft. whole cane sugar, o. sweet whey powder, salt, o. ginger powder, o. vanilla, o. soy lecithin.

This bar has more prominent flavor than the above, not to mention some variation in texture. With the outside's sharp corners I half expected it to contain wafers or something, but it's all truffle, only not smooth truffle: The ganache is blended with ground almonds, with an occasional tiny raisin resting along the bottom. The flavor is creamy, nutty, sweet, and a little salty, with the grappa-soaked raisins making things interesting. Everything in between is fatty richness, but with all those tiny nut pieces and moist raisins and that pinch of salt, it's not like eating a piece of butter. As for the grappa, I pulled out a piece of raisin alone and tried it, and I think it gave me a little more than the usual caramel-fruit flavor, but it was hard to tell.

What can we learn about inclusions from this bar? Fruits and nuts can be intriguing, in both texture and flavor! The ground almonds, raisins “layered” at the bottom, the addition of salt that just barely reminded me of a Reese's peanut butter cup—they all made this a pretty neat bar, and I'd like to try more from zotter.

Divine Fruit and Nut Dark Chocolate

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Fair trade cocoa mass, ft. sugar, currants, ft. cocoa butter, chopped almonds, butterfat, soy lecthin, ft. vanilla

14g sugar/50g serving (28% by wt.)

When I reviewed Divine's mint bar I thought it just okay, but I appreciated the company's commitment to fair trade practices and swore to give its chocolate another chance. That chance is here with the fruit and nut dark chocolate bar, which is more precisely the currant and almond bar in 68% cacao chocolate. The bar is straightforward: It has a standard gloss, is nicely molded, and looks medium brown, and it smells, as you might imagine, of raisins. It also tastes a bit of raisins, and nuts too (though I wouldn't say they're clearly almonds), both chopped fine. The chocolate is sweet and not especially interesting.

I've actually had Divine's fruit and nut bar several times before. It's never my favorite, as the chocolate isn't the best and the combination of currants, almonds, and chocolate is wholly uninspired. But by the same token, the chocolate isn't off-putting and the flavorings don't clash with the chocolate, so the bar is pleasant enough and easy to eat. I wouldn't say I recommend it, but if you like the combination, you could do worse.

Conclusion: Divine's Fruit and Nut bar is acceptable for those who like currants and almonds in their chocolate.