Indi Chocolate

Corporate Info: Indi Chocolate is a small batch, bean-to-bar company in Seattle, producing not only dark chocolate but also cacao-infused skin products. A generous co-taster spotted Indi's small storefront in Pike Place Market and brought me a sampling of its dark chocolate bars.

Today's Bars: Four in total: plain, dried cherries, dried cranberries, and crystallized ginger. All include only cocoa beans, cocoa butter, sugar, and cherries/cranberries/ginger.

Appearance: Indi's plain bar comes in a fancy mold, imprinted with leaves and cacao pods (and some air bubbles around the edges). The others involve spreading chocolate out in a thin sheet, sprinkling on the inclusion, then cooling and breaking up the pieces. Either way, the chocolate has a nice, low-shine sheen and a deep, rich, medium brown color. 

Smell: Surprisingly buttery, and even the plain chocolate is deeply sweet, like dried fruit.

Taste: The plain chocolate starts out sweet, but is followed by a thin, bitter edge that adds complexity, and there's an underlying dark, fruity flavor like dried dates or plums. The chocolate under the inclusions tastes like it might be lower cacao, but I wouldn't swear to it. The cherry and cranberry both work really well, sweet and moist against the bittersweet chocolate. The ginger is surprisingly subtle, more than I personally would like, but for the ginger-wary it would work well. 

Conclusion: Indi Chocolate is a Seattle-local company making a fine chocolate product with good inclusions, especially the fruits.

Cachet Blackberry & Ginger

3.5oz (100g) bar
Ingredients: Cocoa mass, sugar, blackberry granules (inulin, blackberry flavoring, blackberry powder), cocoa butter, butter oil, ginger granules (inulin, ginger flavoring, natural flavorings), 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: Blackberry & Ginger, one of Cachet's "fruit tablets," in 57% cacao.

Appearance: Medium brown with pale flecks beneath the surface.

Smell: Fake-fruity, sweet and candy-like berry rather than fresh or tart or dried. Chocolate is mild under the fruit scent.

Taste: Too-sweet berry perfume, then the crunch of the "granules," then a sweet, slightly chalky, but generally pleasant very mild chocolate. I'm not getting ginger almost at all, though since I'm looking for it I think I can pull it out just a touch. I've decided I don't like "granules"--this isn't recognizable dried berry, or candied ginger, or hard candies flavored with either, it's some sort of unholy creation that's supposed to taste like them, and it only does in a broad, not-real-food sense. Ugh, and now I taste lingering "natural flavoring blackberry type" (the actual text in the listed ingredients)...blech. A letdown after last week.

Conclusion: Cachet Blackberry & Ginger is redolent of fake berry, with the odd texture of industrial "granules." I don't like it.

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.

Fearless 70% Sweet & Hot Hibiscus Ginger

 

2oz (56.7g) bar

Ingredients: Organic raw cacao, o. raw cane sugar, o. hibiscus flower, o. ginger

7g sugar/28.35g serving (24.7% by wt.)

Corporate Info: Fearless is totally new to me, but I spied its frankly adorable boxes (tiny elephant! lightning! cloud/bite out of corner! friendly font!) on sale and bought a couple boxes. The company was apparently founded in 2006 in California, uses recycled paper for the outer boxes, and makes bean-to-bar chocolate with organic ingredients and direct trade cacao from specific plantations in Brazil, with a special focus on raw cacao. All of this may or may not mean anything to you, but I think I can safely say that Fearless is full of good intentions, part of what I'm seeing as a young cohort trying to bring chocolate into the modern age more thoughtfully, with an eye toward (or blatant focus on) sustainability and treating growers well. The small-company, bean-to-bar model is one way of doing it (contrast with Divine, for example), and it's a fine option. Good for them. Oh, and Fearless currently produces only five items, a plain 75% bar and four 70% bars with interesting flavor combos.

Today's Bar: The third in a run of ginger bars, this one also contains hibiscus, which in my experience is usually quite tart. The raw cacao also promises to be a flavor wild card.

Appearance: Fearless has its looks down, making raw/organic/direct trade accessibly cute. In addition to a matte, orangey bar with a touch of grey (mostly the washed-out effect of the matte texture), this bar has the tiny elephant, stars on each section, and a replica of the scalloped “bite” taken out of the top right corner. This is a rare case of meaningfully good product design.

Smell: Surprisingly mild, with a beany-tart “real chocolate” aroma (similar to last week's) and some super-integrated gingery spice. Not sure about the hibiscus.

Taste: Spicy ginger shows up immediately, even before I begin chewing, then a sour combo that I think comes from both the chocolate (beany) and the hibiscus (sharp). The texture is quite smooth and somewhat thick, which also means no crystallized ginger pieces. I don't know if I'm tasting ginger juice or ground ginger, but either way it's thin and spicy, not at all candied, but also not overwhelming or hot. I'm not sure that raw, super close-to-the-tree chocolate is my favorite kind, but it works very well with the fresh tasting ginger and a hibiscus flavor that enhances the cacao's raw, sour highs. A surprising success.

Conclusion: Fearless 70% Sweet & Hot Hibiscus Ginger makes raw cacao and fresh ginger and hibiscus friendly by controlling potentially harsh flavors and presenting an outstanding appearance.

B.T. McElrath Ginger Toffee Chocolate Bar

3oz (85g) bar

Ingredients: Chocolate liquor, sugar, cane sugar, cocoa butter, milk fat, salted butter, soy lecithin, vanilla, ginger, sodium bicarbonate, cayenne pepper, natural flavor, sea salt.

13g sugar/43g serving (30.2% by wt.)

Corporate Info: (Altered from 12/17/11) Minneapolis's B.T. McElrath was founded by a chef, and accordingly seems to focus on creating unusual flavored bars and interesting seasonal confections. No organic/fair trade here. B.T. McElrath's Chile Limón Bar is one of my favorites, and while I was less enamored with the seemingly popular Salty Dog, I'm always up for more of the company's fun flavor combos.

Today's Bar: Continuing a ginger theme is B.T. McElrath's bar of both ginger toffee and candied ginger in 70% cacao. The complex-sounding flavor, which includes cayenne pepper in the toffee, sounds right up my alley.

Appearance: Shiny, rich brown with tiny light flecks under the surface and intermittent, barely-perceptible bumps on the back.

Smell: Rich, sweet, nutty, and mild, but with a bitter-sour undercurrent for chocolatey realness.

Taste: Not nearly as gingery as I thought it would be! I can see little toffee and crystallized ginger pieces, but the ginger here mostly adds candied complexity and texture to a mild, pleasant chocolate, with the cayenne contributing a super-subtle (and quite nice) burn at the end. As the smell demonstrated, the chocolate isn't flavorless, it just doesn't have any standout flavors: It's balanced sweet/sour/bitter/beany with no sharp edges and a smooth (save the inclusions) texture, a very easy 70% cacao. Kind of boring, but nice.

Conclusion: B.T. McElrath Ginger Toffee Chocolate Bar is a nice, mild dark chocolate with textural interest and just a hint of ginger and cayenne.

Green & Black's Ginger Dark Chocolate

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Organic fair trade chocolate, oft. raw cane sugar, oft. cocoa butter, soy lecithin, oft. vanilla extract, o. crystallized ginger pieces (ginger and cane sugar), o. whole milk powder

18g sugar/40g serving (45% by wt.)

Corporate Info: Check out this Brand Overview from March.

Today's Bar: This is the first of three weeks of ginger flavored bars, with today's being just plain ginger in 60% cacao. Sweet for me, but hey.

Appearance: Light grey-red-brown, matte looking but slightly glossy if you wipe away surface dust. Little lighter flecks under the surface, presumably crystallized ginger. Note: Green & Black's molding is very blocky, with wide but shallow scoring. I assume that keeps bars in one piece during shipping, but it makes them a little challenging to break cleanly. Oh well.

Smell: Not strong but sweet-sour and gingery. I anticipate a mild chocolate with minor tartness and sweet crystallized ginger pieces with no “bite.”

Taste: Goes down easy. Sweet, mild, with pleasant, rounded tang. Thoroughly shot through with ginger, which adds harshness-free flavor and soft, candied textural interest rather than discernible pieces within separate chocolate.

Conclusion: Ginger for the mass market: An introduction to ginger for nervous eaters, or an unchallenging, everyday noshing chocolate for ginger lovers.

Chocolove Ginger Crystallized in Dark Chocolate 65% Cocoa Content

3.2oz (90g) bar
Ingredients: Cocoa liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla, crystallized ginger 11g sugar/30g bar (36.7% by wt.) 

Today's bar is Chocolove's take on the fairly popular combo of candied ginger and chocolate. Now that I think about it, ginger and chocolate actually sounds like it wouldn't work at all, but the sweet-spicy ginger candy often provides a nice contrast with creamy, rich chocolate. We'll see how well Chocolove does with the combo. 

Corporate Info: (Copied from 10/15/11) 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: Very dark brown with a dark greyish cast and not lot of warmth (red, orange or yellow). Mine is a little beaten up and dusty, but with the dust rubbed away it's much glossier.
 

Smell: Not ginger, exactly, but spicy, with a sweetness that has some perfume, like honey or pineapple. No big chocolate smell, but a little characteristic beaniness. This isn't a very strong-smelling bar.
 

Taste: Definitely sweet, with the flavor of candied ginger that has had all the harshness taken out and not a lot of depth to the chocolate, which mostly provides a hard, then crumbly, then creamy texture. Small but tangible pieces of ginger are well distributed and soft in a crumbly, sugary way, which I think is a good choice: The ginger's texture melds well with the experience of eating this particular chocolate while still standing out enough for contrast.
 

Conclusion: Chocolove Ginger Crystallized in Dark Chocolate 65% Cocoa Content is sweet, gingery, and harshness-free. Its lack of depth won't win it any dark chocolate awards, but it's an easy eating candy with a lower sugar content than you might expect.

Shaman Organic Chocolates 60% Cacao Dark Chocolate with Green Tea & Ginger

2oz (57g) bar

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

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

I liked Shaman's 82% bar, but I didn't think the light flavor of the chocolate tasted as good down at 60% cacao in the açaí, lemon, and orange bar. Will it work better with bitter green tea and spicy ginger?

Corporate Info: (Copied from two weeks ago.) 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: Same red-brown and gloss as the other Shaman bars, with even more air bubbles.

Smell: Not a lot. Some of the same fresh, unripe smell as the 82%, but very muted. Not getting green tea or ginger per se.

Taste: Still sweet like the açaí, lemon, and orange bar, but with a more interesting flavor. Ginger is in a scattering of little crystallized pieces, which make the chewing texture gritty. I'm still not really getting green tea, but there is a little bitterness that counters the sweet, and I figure that's the tea. I wouldn't buy this again, but I like the taste more than the açaí, lemon, and orange bar, and others might like its sweetness.

Conclusion: Shaman Organic Chocolates 60% Cacao Dark Chocolate with Green Tea & Ginger is sweet, though the flavorings contribute some balance and complexity. All the same, I think Shaman's 60% bars are too sweet for my taste.