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.

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.

Madre Chocolate Hibiscus Dark Chocolate

 

1.5oz (43g) bar

Ingredients: Organic fair trade cacao beans, o. cane sugar, o. cocoa butter, Mexican whole vanilla, o. hibiscus, o. bergamot oil

Corporate Info: (Altered 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. 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 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.

Today's Bar: Hibiscus in 70% cacao, which I picked up from Madre's booth at the Northwest Chocolate Festival back in September. This bar is made with Dominican cacao, and includes not only hibiscus but also bergamot oil as a flavoring. I expect the hibiscus to impart a bright, sour note; I'm less familiar with bergamot outside of Earl Grey tea, but Wikipedia says that it's the bitter, sour, fragrant skin of the citrus fruit that is used as a flavoring. Here, I assume it will add complexity to the clear tartness of the hibiscus.

Appearance: Madre's usual funky mold, semi-glossy, in a pleasant, creamy-looking orangey brown.

Smell: Slightly acrid, fresh, and spicy.

Taste: I tried this bar at the festival and liked it, so though I didn't remember the nuances, I knew I would enjoy it. The chocolate itself is crunchy melting to waxy, rich, and not too sweet. I can definitely sense the bergamot in here, as the flavor is layered, with the bitter, fragrant citrus rind oil, the straightforward, fruity sourness of hibiscus, the fresh, tropical cacao, and the sweet sugar to anchor it all.

Conclusion: Madre Chocolate Hibiscus Dark Chocolate is a well-crafted layering of fresh, sweet, sour, and bitter flavors.

Madécasse Pink Pepper & Citrus

2.64oz (75g) bar

Ingredients: Cocoa beans, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla, pink pepper, combava

13g sugar/37.5g serving (34.7% by wt.)

Corporate Info: (Altered from 12/3/11) Madécasse has one of those interesting progressive-chocolate-company stories: The American founders met as Peace Corps volunteers in Madagascar and decided to not only grow their cacao there (not unusual) but also process and package the chocolate there to benefit the local community. The company claims to be paying good wages and using sustainable farming practices, and has impressed The New York Times and Fast Company (among others) with its commitment and innovation. The bars are not officially labeled fair trade or organic, but from what I read, the process is essentially a variation on both of those complicated labels. Madécasse produces a relatively small selection of plain and flavored bars. As Emma pointed out after my last Madécasse review, the company has changed its labels since then—though I should note that, even a few months later, I'm still seeing some of the old bars on store shelves among the new ones, so you might find the old labels out there.

Today I'm trying a really fun bar, a 63% cacao Pink Pepper & Citrus. I've tried herby pink pepper before, in two bars I brought back from Germany, but while those peppercorns were pressed into the chocolate these are incorporated, so I'm curious if they will impart a different experience. What's totally unfamiliar to me is the combava, which turns out to be another name for kaffir lime, a fruit I only know through the leaves (and apparently rind?) used in southeast Asian cooking. I suspect Madécasse used “combava” because it seems to be the preferred term in French, one of Madagascar's official languages. (Similarly, Madécasse is apparently the old French name for Madagascar, I'm assuming having to do with its being a one-time French colony.)

Appearance: Like a normal chocolate bar, though I'm reviewing a 70% cacao Madécasse bar next week and they actually have very different finishes. Today's is fairly matte, with only a little gloss after I wipe it a little, and the brown is quite light, almost washed-out looking, whereas next week's only-somewhat-higher-cacao bar is a significantly deeper, richer color. Hm.

Smell: Not strong, though I'm getting a hint of the pink pepper's prickly spice. No obvious citrus.

Taste: Fun! The chocolate is foundational, maybe a little chalky and beany, but not strong. Then a hit of citrus, and then the super-complex pepper that's hard to describe, plus the flavors are well blended, in that I don't taste three separate ingredients. There's some medium-volume sourness that I think comes from both the combava and the chocolate, because it's both sharp (like citrus) and beany (like you'll taste in tart chocolates). Then there's that resiny, prickly, herby flavor like cardamom and grass and nutmeg that I'm assuming comes from the pink pepper, but since I don't know combava well, I wonder if it contributes any of the fresh, green elements. As I said, texture is a little chalky, and the pink pepper is totally incorporated, whether finely ground or somehow steeped in the chocolate.

Conclusion: Super interesting, if you like herby-spicy (and not super dark) chocolate.

Vivani Dark Chocolate with Orange

3.5oz (100g)

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

11g sugar/42g serving (26.2% by wt.)

Corporate Info: Vivani is a young subsidiary of Germany's Weinrich (a.k.a. corporate-sounding Ludwig Weinrich GmbH & Co. KG), and I've seen a selection of its bars all around Seattle, including today's Dark Chocolate with Orange. Vivani's focus is on being organic, so much so that the company's unveiling was at an organic trade fair. They also make claims about the positive effect of their farming practices on local communities as well as avoiding genetically modified ingredients (like common emulsifier soy lecithin), a widespread concern in Europe.

Appearance: Slightly reddish and fairly matte.

Smell: Rich with a little spice.

Taste: Texture is fatty-creamy and mouth-filling, the kind that coats your tongue and teeth and makes you want to sip some water. That's not good or bad, just a matter of preference. The flavor reminds me of what perfumers call “Orientals”—”exotic” woods and spices like nutmeg and cedar that make the whole bar taste rich, with the bitter edge of citrus peel. (To be clear though, this is relatively subtle, not like, say, Leysieffer's cardamom bar.) All in all, orange oil doesn't really do it for me as a chocolate additive, but from a more objective standpoint I think the unexpected complexity it contributes is pretty neat.

Conclusion: Vivani Dark Chocolate with Orange offers that complex orange oil spiciness that may or may not be right up your alley.

Vosges Blood Orange Caramel Bar

 

3oz (85g) bar

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla, organic cream, corn syrup, Campari, hibiscus powder, orange zest, blood orange puree, water, sea salt

Vosges' blood orange caramel-filled bar was suggested to me by reader Emma after she read my post praising the similar Black Salt Caramel Bar. Vosges seems to do well with subtle complexity; will this bar fit that mold?

Corporate Info: (mostly copied from 9/24/11): Vosges is based in Chicago and produces a pretty wide variety of adventurously flavored bars and confections, among them the famous bacon chocolate. In the past I have been annoyed by the pretentious copy on the back of the box, and it's silly here too, but the website keeps the flowery text off the front page, and of course it's not as important as the chocolate!

Appearance: Subtle gloss, uniform deep brown color, cleanly stamped. Breaking a corner off reveals a gooey, somewhat liquidy caramel that makes this bar messier than the salt caramel one. (Yes, I know it looks like there's a slug sandwiched in my chocolate there on the left. Not particularly appetizing.)

Smell: Rich, a little dried fruit and nuts, but very cohesive: no smells stand out or seem removed from the central scent. I don't get any particular blood orange or caramel here, though the box claims some “bright citrus.”

Taste: The chocolate is super smooth, creamy, and nutty, and the caramel has, yes, a complex and subtle perfumey sweet-sour flavor. I can't tease out the blood orange vs. hibiscus vs. orange zest vs. Campari, but as with the smell I think that's where Vosges excels, combining ingredients in such a balanced way that they create something new, and that's pretty great. Unfortunately, though, there are downsides to this bar, mostly relating to the consistency of the caramel. First, it does indeed make for sloppy eating. Second, Vosges recommends breaking off “a small piece” and holding it against the roof of your mouth with your tongue until “within thirty seconds the chocolate square will begin to melt”; this is impossible with a bar that consistently breaks in the middle of each delicate square, smashing the caramel between shards of chocolate and leaving you with sticky pieces of the solid chocolate between squares. Third, the problem with this (aside from the mess) is that when you eat those pieces, the caramel melts away before the chocolate does, the equivalent of eating an outstanding sandwich inside-out rather than being able to fully enjoy the magical combination of bread and filling. I suspect the whole experience of this bar would be made better just by thickening the caramel.

Conclusion: Vosges Blood Orange Caramel Bar demonstrates Vosges' skill with subtlety and depth of flavor, but the too-thin caramel detracts from the experience.

Shaman Organic Chocolates 60% Cacao Dark Chocolate with Açaí, Lemon, & Orange

2oz (57g) bar

Ingredients: Organic sugar, o. chocolate liquor, o. cocoa butter, o. soy lecithin, o. vanilla, o. lemon peel, o. açaí, o. orange oil

9g sugar/28.5g serving (31.6% by wt.)

Corporate Info: (Copied from last week.) 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: Reddish, glossy, with inclusions visible on the back and more air bubbles than the 82% bar.

Smell: Fun! Complex, sweet-sour, perfumey from the lemon peel and spicy orange oil. Any scent from the chocolate is subtle or in keeping with the inclusions.

Taste: Rather sweet, not sour at all, and just not as interesting as I'd hoped. Açaí is hard and crunchy, stone-like and unpleasant, and the fibers stick around in my teeth after the chocolate is gone. Good spice from the orange oil, but it's not enough to stand up to the sweetness. Perhaps this would've been better with 70% cacao or higher.

Conclusion: Shaman Organic Chocolates 60% Cacao Dark Chocolate with Açaí, Lemon, & Orange smells better than it tastes.

Equal Exchange Orange Dark Chocolate 65%

3.5oz (100g) bar
Ingredients: Organic fair trade chocolate liquor, oft. raw cane sugar, oft. cocoa butter, oft. unrefined cane sugar, o. orange oil, oft. ground vanilla beans
13g sugar/40g serving (32.5% by wt.)

Corporate Info: Massachusetts co-op Equal Exchange is serious about fair trade, organic growing methods, relationships with farmers, and everything that goes along with it. I'm actually overwhelmed by the extensive website, but suffice to say that the reason behind the company's founding was to do good via products that now encompass your usual array of tasty and potentially problematic foods from the tropics: chocolate, coffee, tea, bananas, etc. At this point they're well-established and respected (the Better World Shopping Guide gives them an A+), so if you care about “Corporate Info” enough to read this paragraph, this is the sort of company you'll love.

Appearance: A good, solid, mostly matte, slightly greyish brown.

Smell: I actually bought, partially ate, and intended to review this bar ages ago, but I also just bought a new one as well. The old pieces smell only a little and not of orange at all, more like dusty dried ginger too long unused. The new bar, fresh from sealed plastic, retains the volatile orange oil, light and warm and a little spicy. An interesting contrast.

Taste: Let's try both bars here too. The old one has little orange flavor per se, but it's still tangy (not sour or acrid) and fresh-tasting, with a tiny bit of spice—not an autumn-pie cinnamon or allspice, but something lighter like cardamom, ginger, or nutmeg. The new bar still tastes subtly of orange oil, which to be clear isn't at all like the flesh of the orange (or, say, juice) but again more like an interesting and unique, slightly bitter spice. Also, this chocolate tastes less tangy, perhaps because it's more balanced by the flavoring. Texture is dense and somewhat chalky.

Conclusion: Equal Exchange Orange Dark Chocolate 65% is mostly chocolate, with a little bitter warmth from the orange oil.

Claudio Corallo Chocolate Laranja

1.76oz (50g) bar

Ingredients: Cocoa, sugar, crystallized orange peel, cocoa butter

Chocolate with orange is not a novel flavor combination. Christmas wouldn't be the same to many Americans without the interactive, decadent fun of a Terry's chocolate orange. Theo's Classic collection takes a more restrained approach with a dark chocolate bar infused with orange oil. And for all out orange flavor, many confectioners offer chocolate covered sticks of orange jelly or glaceed orange peel—sometimes chewy, sometimes soft, but always more syrupy candy than sultry chocolate.

So what's so special about Claudio Corallo's take? Well, it's just different. For starters, Claudio Corallo's bars don't look like the usual, orange or otherwise. The finish is dull, not glossy, and the bars don't appear molded but rather spread thin and cut into rectangular slabs. (They also come two slabs to a “bar” or, in the larger package, as several slabs nestled tightly in a cardboard box.) There's something appealing about a matte finish and an imperfect shape, something rawer and closer to the bean than what's apparent from the candy-gloss surface of a precisely molded product. What's more, the bars smell like the tropics, a heady perfume of flowers and fruit, nothing spicy or caramelized or Christmasy about them.

Back to the orange: Claudio Corallo is using 75% cacao, and for what it's worth, there is no vanilla or other flavoring besides the orange. The soft crystallized orange pieces, lightly scattered within the bar, are more slightly bitter orange than sugar; they're not so much a tangible orange candy as a subtle flavor element. I found the chocolate and orange to be inseparable, so I will describe them together as sweet and orange-fragrant, with the barest touch of tang and a long finish. The flavor is not bitter or especially intense, but I also wouldn't describe it as mild, because it doesn't have the creamy, muted smoothness of some bars. It's treading the line between raw and finished, tropical bean and mellow candy. I find it fairly sweet, so to my taste I could have used a darker chocolate, but I imagine it's plenty dark for most people and I do think it strikes a good balance.

As I've said, this stuff ain't cheap, but it's a very interesting way to calibrate your palate, explore the boundaries of what chocolate and citrus can be, and transport yourself to the tropics in a way that American and European chocolates usually don't.

Conclusion: Claudio Corallo's Chocolate Laranja bar may not be what you always want from your chocolate and orange, but it's worth at least one visit—and a few dedicated minutes to sit, savor, and reflect.

B.T. McElrath Chile Limón Chocolate Bar

3.0oz (85g) bar

Ingredients: Dark chocolate (chocolate liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin), milk chocolate (cane sugar, full cream milk, cocoa butter, cacao beans, soy lecithin, vanilla beans), dried chilies, lime.

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

I've mostly stopped buying chile-flavored chocolate. The trend was interesting in the Mexican-chocolate vein, but much of what I found was spicy in a way that overshadowed the chocolate and didn't have much flavor of its own, so it just didn't taste good. Thus I was wary when the clerk at a specialty chocolate shop recommended B.T. McElrath's Chile Limón bar. It seemed to be more than the usual over-cayenned bar, though, a combination of lime-flavored dark chocolate and chile-flavored milk chocolate swirled together and molded into a variegated bar. For the chance of something novel, I went ahead and ponied up $2 an ounce.

First off, this bar is actually quite beautiful, as you can see here. The taste is also new to me, in terms of both the citrus and the chile: The first element that hits me is the lime, bright but not dominant, while the subtler chile simmers instead of searing. The dark and milk chocolates form something of a mosaic, so it takes effort to distinguish the two and it's more enjoyable to enjoy them as one. This bar is light and sweet, a fun social gathering of four disparate flavors—tart, spicy, creamy, dark—that don't all know each other well but then surprisingly get along swimmingly, and the party just hums along.

Conclusion: B.T. McElrath Chile Limón bar is a good time.

[Update 7/21/12: Today I noticed that the link to this bar isn't working. When I looked at B.T. McElrath's site, I saw that the Chile Limón bar is no longer listed. I hope they start making it again!]