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.

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.

Alter Eco Dark Blackout

2.82oz (80g) bar

Ingredients: Organic fair trade cocoa liquor, oft. cocoa butter, oft. cane sugar, oft. vanilla

6g sugar/40g serving (15% by wt.)

Corporate Info: Alter Eco reminds me of Equal Exchange, in that both companies import several organic crops (in this case cacao, quinoa, rice, and sugar) from developing nations, and both attempt to build a new model of globalized business by working closely with the farmers who produce the goods. The globalization goes up the chain, too, as the chocolate is processed in Switzerland and the co-founders are French, American, and Australian. I'd like to think more of these sorts of companies can prove profitable! Chocolate-wise, Alter Eco sells its variation on the standards, using orange peel instead of oil, adding coconut to its toffee, and even mixing in crunchy “quinoa-rice crisps.”

Today's Bar: Blackout, Alter Eco's 85% bar.

Appearance: You know, this is kind of pretty. It's just scored into a large grid, but the molding is clean and the imprint of the Alter Eco logo makes it look a little more “done” than some very simply molded bars. The color is a deep reddish brown with a light gloss.

Smell: Also simple, warm and red-berry tart.

Taste: Crunchy, then a quick melter—super smooth and cocoa-buttery. Ooh, very bitter on the front end, tannic but not heavy, like a light-bodied red wine. There's red fruit in there, tartness and the like, but really the tannins and the smoothness are what stand out for me.

Conclusion: Alter Eco Dark Blackout is super-smooth, a little tart, and dryly bitter like a light red wine.

Fresh & Easy Swiss 72% Dark Chocolate

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Cocoa liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa powder, natural flavor

11g sugar/40 serving (27.5% by wt.)

Corporate Info: Fresh & Easy is a grocery store operating in the Southwestern U.S. The company stocks a combination of large brands and its own store brand, operates relatively small stores, avoids additives in its private label products, and is a subsidiary of a large European chain (note: this may not last)—all of which make it sound like a more mainstream Trader Joe's. (Some of the products even look like they could be TJ's private label goods.)

Today's Bar: Fresh & Easy's store brand 72% Swiss chocolate, also containing “natural flavors,” which I'm guessing means vanilla if not others as well. I can't remember where I found this bar, but it certainly wasn't at Fresh & Easy. But hey, whatever.

Appearance: Big, thin, flat. Matte, lending a greyish cast to a medium-toned, slightly reddish bar.

Smell: Sugary, nutty, kind of thin.

Taste: Not a fan. Crunchy, then thick, somewhat chalky, with a thin, sweet flavor. I was reminded of cocoa powder, then recalled a conversation with Nat of Madre Chocolate at the Northwest Chocolate Festival: I was able to try a new, Hawaii-grown chocolate they're working on, which he euphemistically described as “tasting like Oreos” because of its flat, cocoa-powder-like flavor. He pointed out that the challenge was in the fermentation, which is what develops the complex sourness that many good chocolates have, and which was the next step in bringing their new cacao up to snuff. Perhaps it's the fermentation that's bringing me down in the case of Fresh & Easy's product. I will say that today's co-taster thinks this chocolate is okay: “It starts out dry and unremarkable, but then there's a little bit of richness and creaminess that comes out.” He still doesn't think it stands out from the other chocolates we've tried, but he doesn't dislike it as much as I do.

Conclusion: Fresh & Easy Swiss 72% Dark Chocolate is thin and sweet, lacking the rounded complexity of the chocolates I tend to like.

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.

Domori Cacao Criollo 70% Porcelana

0.88oz (25g) bar

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, cane sugar

Corporate Info: [Altered from 1/23/11] A Google search on Italy's Domori mostly finds retailers and the occasional layperson like me, not news articles or other credible sources of information. (One minor exception is a short blog post from 2005 by famed pastry chef David Lebovitz.) Domori is currently a subsidiary of gruppo illy, which also owns several other high-end brands including the obvious illycaffè. Otherwise I'll refrain from making any claims about Domori as a company and just point you to the areas of its website that talk about its plantation, the company today, its production process, and so on. It's not all that enlightening, but the focus (whether in reality or just marketing terms) seems to be on quality and flavor. The bars are very small and pricey, so they'd better be high quality!

This Bar: I received the Porcelana from a friend, who absolutely loves Domori and this bar in particular. It's made with prized criollo beans from Venezuela, which supposedly have a subtler, “finer” taste. Domori's website claims the Porcelana bar has “hints of bread, butter, and jam for an exhilarating round palate.” Hm, okay.

Appearance: Domori's thin, flat shape with a low-key sheen and orange undertone. (The photo above was taken some time after I received the bar, so my description is based on my having rubbed my thumb over the bloom evident there.)

Smell: Not strong, but earthy, bitter, and roasted.

Taste: Texture is super rich and creamy. Flavor is indeed subtle but with a thin, bitter edge and long finish. I'm getting earthy and dried, like dirt or mushrooms, plus there's that long-lasting but not especially tannic (as is often the case) bitterness that reminds me of the aftertaste of strong, dark-roasted coffee. Lots of complexity here.

Conclusion: Domori Cacao Criollo 70% Porcelana is smooth and subtly earthy, with a long-lasting bitter finish.

Fearless 75% Dark as Midnight

2oz (56.7g) bar

Ingredients: Organic raw cacao, o. unrefined cane sugar

6g sugar/28.35g serving (21.2% by wt.)

Corporate Info: [Copied from 6/2/12] 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: Fearless's plain chocolate, in 75% cacao rather than the 70% they use in flavored bars.

Appearance: Fearless's usual fairly matte bar with the great mold, though I'd venture (without having the others in front of me) that the 75% chocolate is slightly glossier and has a richer, redder hue than its fairly grey 70% base.

Smell: Fresh, raw but rounded, earthy.

Taste: Like Fearless's other bars, this one crunches before melting into something smooth and thick. The flavor is tart and beany, like cacao nibs with a super-creamy texture; there are undertones of something fragrant and tropical, maybe banana, but the predominant flavor is sour and somewhat tannic without being seriously bitter or harsh.

Conclusion: Fearless 75% Dark as Midnight has a creamy texture and a bright and raw but tempered flavor. It's wild cacao that's been tamed for your palate.

Madre Chocolate 70% Hawaiian Dark Chocolate

1.5oz (43g) bar

Ingredients: Hawaiian cacao beans, organic sugar, o. cocoa butter, Mexican whole vanilla

A few months ago, in response to my review of Madécasse's pink pepper and citrus chocolate, reader Emma asked if I'd ever tried the pink pepper bar made by Madre Chocolate. I'd never heard of the brand, so of course I looked up Madre online, and imagine my surprise when I saw that the young company is based in my hometown of Honolulu, Hawaii! I implored my mother to buy several bars locally and bring them with her when I saw her on the mainland last month, and luckily for me she complied. So here I am with three bars from Madre, and three weeks' worth of reviews. Today's is for the basic 70% Hawaiian Dark Chocolate.

Corporate Info: 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. All three of my bars come from the latter line and are listed as “limited edition” because of the seasonality and availability of some of the ingredients. 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 as my mother experienced, 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.

Appearance: Madre's chocolate is immediately striking because of its interesting mold. All three of the bars I have and most though not all of the bars on the website appear to be made in the same mold, in which half of each bar is covered with abstract, convex shapes reminiscent of lava rock walls and the other half is carved with what appear to be ancient Central American figures. I can't find an explanation of the molding choices on the website, but there is a blurb about the company's logo design here. Aside from that, the chocolate is a middle-of-the-road brown, not especially red or grey or shiny, though it is mostly matte. 

[Update 8/12/12: Emma points out that the molds Madre uses are mass produced, and can be purchased here. Thanks, Emma!]

Smell: Strong. Robust, beany, spicy, a little tart, a little roasty, very complex. I expect a lot of flavor here!

Taste: Texture is waxy, chewy, then smooth—the extra cocoa butter might be doing that. Flavor is fruity and surprisingly mild, like creamy banana or coconut, as well as a little tart and a little bitter in the tannic/drying/astringent way.

Conclusion: Madre Chocolate 70% Hawaiian Dark Chocolate is lush and tropical, with added cocoa butter creaminess.

Ikea Choklad Mörk / Dark Chocolate

3.5oz (100g) bar

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

13g sugar/33g serving (39.4% by wt.)

Corporate Info: It's Ikea, international home of cheap flat-pack furniture and Swedish meatballs. Their stock of groceries includes a few chocolate bars.

Today's Bar: Among Ikea's three chocolate bars (milk, milk with hazelnuts, and dark) is this 60% cacao option. Nothing special, just “dark chocolate,” and it costs 99¢.

Appearance: One of those big, thin bars, but with a pillowy top. Fairly matte, with a purply-grey cast.

Smell: Pretty nice, with a light, spiced nuttiness like nutmeg or almonds.

Taste: First sweet, followed by a whole flavor experience that doesn't work for me. It reminds me of cream that's gone sour: There's nothing wrong with cream, and we expect cacao to have tart elements, but the richness and sourness don't mesh here, and the sweet sits on top of the whole thing and lingers weirdly for a long while along with a thin, tinny sort of bitterness. The flavors here all make sense, but for some reason they just don't meld in this bar.

Conclusion: Ikea Choklad Mörk / Dark Chocolate has all the right flavors, but they don't mesh well.

Leysieffer Les Extra Fins Bittersweet (Edelbitter)

100g bar

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla

Corporate Info: (Copied from 6/9/12; see that post for more) Leysieffer was founded in 1909 and began making chocolate truffles in 1936. The company is still family-operated, but it now includes 19 confectionary shops throughout Germany as well as a half dozen “bistros” serving cake and whatnot. And if you're really curious, you can order its products online.

Today's Bar: In addition to all the flavored bars (and other products), Leysieffer does have an assortment of plain chocolate in various cacao percentages and origins. Today's Les Extra Fins Bittersweet is a fairly plain choice: It's not single origin and, at 61% cacao, it's only slightly darker than the 55% base of its semisweet flavored bars, which I thought might make for an interesting comparison.

Appearance: A rich, reddish brown not much different from the 55%, though I do think it has more red-orange in it. It's actually a rather lovely color.

Smell: Warm, beany but with rounded edges, nothing sharp there. Comfortable.

Taste: Texture is waxy, smooth, just a tiny bit chalky. Flavor is indeed deeper than the 55%, though the sweetness hits me first, which isn't my favorite experience in general. However, once the chocolateyness catches up, it's quite nice in an accessible way, like a bittersweet chocolate chip: a touch sour, enough bitter to taste like real chocolate, nowhere near raw but still within sight of the tree—as opposed to, say, those super-smooth, creamy chocolates that taste like they sprang up on their own in a Parisian chocolaterie. This isn't anything special, but it might satisfy some people's everyday cravings.

Conclusion: Leysieffer Les Extra Fins Bittersweet (Edelbitter) fits the label of bittersweet chocolate.

World Market Dark Chocolate 72% Cacao

3oz (85g) bar

Ingredients: Chocolate liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla

11g sugar/43g serving (25.6% by wt.)

Corporate Info: World Market (a.k.a. Cost Plus World Market) is an American retailer whose large stores sell furniture, housewares, and packaged food and alcohol with a global-imported vibe. For example, it's the only place in Seattle where I've come across Australia's Bundaberg Ginger Beer. World Market carries a particularly wide variety of candies, including store-brand chocolate bars. I've reviewed a couple of flavored bars; what about their plain dark chocolate?

Appearance: Super-dark, with a grey-purple tint rather than red or orange.

Smell: Chocolatey, of the dried-fruit variety. No edges.

Taste: On first bite, I thought “wow, this is really dark for 72%,” and then the sweet came along behind it. I think it's because there really aren't any edges—not really tannic (astringent, mouth-drying), not at all sour, just nothing to balance the sugar even though I don't think it's that sweet. It's kind of like dates, or prunes without the tartness, some simply sweet fruit that's been dried and concentrated. That said, I think there's nuance to what is there, if you're not into sour and don't like bitter chocolate. Think dried persimmons: I've tried them and thought they were dully sweet, but others obviously get more out of that flavor. The chocolate's texture is very slightly waxy, and the aftertaste is caramelized and sweetish.

Conclusion: World Market Dark Chocolate 72% Cacao is sweet, dark, and not much else, though what is there is nuanced. Not for me.

República del Cacao° Provincia Manabi 75%

1.76oz (50g) bar

Ingredients: Cacao liquor, sugar, cacao butter, soy lecithin

7g sugar/25g serving (28% by wt.)

Corporate Info: Most of the search results I'm finding are commercial or other reviews like mine, so I'll have to rely on República del Cacao's convoluted website. Since it's confusing I'm going to keep it short, and if you really want to learn more, feel free to peruse the site yourself. In brief, República del Cacao is a young company focusing on Ecuadorian cacao, which it claims to be particularly floral and fruity. The website seems to indicate that República del Cacao produces only three products, one from each of three provinces.

Today's bar is the one from Manabi Province. The site offers no photo of the packaging or description of the ingredients, instead providing a “flavor description map,” which gives you a pretty good idea of República del Cacao's approach to its chocolate (or at least its marketing). My questions are pretty obvious, then: Is this chocolate extra floral and fruity, and does the flavor map reflect my experience?

Appearance: A blocky little bar in a pleasant, warm brown with a hint of orange and a very slight gloss.

Smell: Fresh, beany, juicy.

Taste: Texture has some chew, in this case a little chalky, resisting the teeth and breaking down into pieces, then very thick and mouth-coating. Flavor-wise, I totally get floral—not in any weird way, just light and fragrant. I don't taste as much fruit, unless we're talking something tropical, the sort with a perfumey taste. Sweet enough, and with very little sour or bitter taste, and a slightly bitter aftertaste. Also, with the first piece I started chewing, I got a hint of tobacco.

Let's check out the flavor map, which I'm simplifying here:

• High: “Chocolate” and “chocolate aroma.” These probably correspond to what I thought of as “beany.” 
• Medium: Sweetness and “chocolate linger.” Sure. 
• Low: Bitter, fluidness, floral, smoothness, floral linger, fruity, acidity, and “cooling.” While I did consider this fairly floral, otherwise these jibe with my impressions of both flavor and texture. 
• Very low: Lingering flavors in general (including bitter, which I did taste a little) as well as “roasted” and “astringency.”

Actually, this flavor map does mostly describe my experience in eating the Manabi Province bar, which is kind of a fun exercise. I'm not sure I love the bar itself, but it certainly isn't bad; this is one of those personal preference things.

Conclusion: República del Cacao° Provincia Manabi 75% is beany and, to my mind, floral, but the real fun is seeing to what extent my experience eating it compares to the company's description. I guess the website is helpful after all!

Michel Cluizel Los Anconés (organic; 67% cacao)

70g (2.46oz) bar

Ingredients: Organic cocoa, o. cane sugar, o. cocoa butter, o. Bourbon vanilla pod

13g sugar/40g serving (32.5% by wt.)

Today's 67% cacao bar comes from Michel Cluizel's line of chocolate from individual plantations, in this case Los Anconés on the Carribean island of Hispaniola (the island shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti). I can't remember when I bought this bar, but unlike the one pictured on the website, mine contains only organic ingredients. I would guess that a current Los Anconés bar would taste similar, though I'm not certain. The box explains that the chocolate has been “lengthily worked,” which I imagine means a super-creamy texture.

Corporate Info: (copied from 5/19/11) I've seen Michel Cluizel's black boxes at all the fancy shops, and I've bought the confections. When I googled the brand I found pages and pages of commercial sites, reviews, and news bytes, though nothing especially edifying. I'll just tell you what the Cluizel site says: Michel Cluizel is a French brand (there's even a museum/experience in Normandy) that started in 1948 and opened a U.S. subsidiary in 2004. It's not chocolate you can feel socially responsible about, but the product quality seems to be well respected.

Appearance: This bar has a totally different imprint than the last Cluizel product I reviewed, but it's still beautifully and sharply molded. The chocolate is attractive too: smooth, slightly glossy, slightly reddish brown.

Smell: Nice, rounded dried fruit. Interesting but not pungent or intense, with nothing standing out.

Taste: Texture is crunchy slowly melting into super smooth; I buy that “lengthily worked” claim. Flavor is very friendly: Not too sweet, not at all sour, very little bitterness or tannins. Not obviously fruity, but there is that touch of pleasant, caramelized brightness, maybe like golden raisins. The box says “liquorice wood, then red berries and green olives.” I can see the licorice—but yes, the straight root, like you might have in tea, just that super-subtle sweetness. If you're not looking for it, you won't taste it at all. Red berries? Okay, sure, but this isn't a fresh, fruity tasting chocolate, so that's also subtle. I'm not getting green olives.

Conclusion: Michel Cluizel Los Anconés is super smooth, subtle, pleasant, and satisfying.