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.

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

Corporate Info: (Copied from 1/12/13) Quirky-gourmet grocery store Trader Joe's tends to be hit or miss, with some products being regular purchases for years, some becoming favorites and then disappearing from shelves, and some straight up disappointing. I've had similarly mixed results with their chocolate, but there's constant turnover, they contract with a whole assortment of manufacturers, and they aim for reasonable price points, so it's worth it to keep trying. There isn't much else to say aside from a fun fact: The US's beloved Trader Joe's is owned by Germany's ALDI, which operates discount supermarkets all over Europe—and that explains why we saw packages of dried fruit and nuts labeled Trader Joe's in an ALDI in Osnabrück.

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

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

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

2oz (57g) bar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2oz (57g) bar

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trader Joe's Organic Stone Ground Salt & Pepper Dark Chocolate

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2.6oz (73.7g) in two discs

Ingredients: I lost the label for this (it's a sticker on the back), but the Taza product contains just organic cocoa beans, organic sugar, salt, and pepper, and is 55% cacao.

Corporate Info: (Copied from 10/6/12) I've had very mixed results with Trader Joe's chocolate, enough that I rarely review it. The quirky-gourmet company is hit or miss anyway, with some products being regular purchases for years, some becoming favorites and then disappearing from shelves, and some straight up disappointing. There isn't much to say aside from a fun fact: The US's beloved Trader Joe's is owned by Germany's ALDI, which operates discount supermarkets all over Europe—and that explains why we saw packages of dried fruit and nuts labeled Trader Joe's in an ALDI in Osnabrück.

This Bar: (Altered from 10/13/12) Trader Joe's is known for offering store brand goods that are possibly lower-cost, identical products made by a name brand manufacturer and sold in very similar packaging that makes the connection even more obvious. Today's stone-ground cacao discs look mighty familiar, don't they? Well, they're as close as you can come (without being 100% positive) to Taza's two-to-a-package, spoke-scored, stone-ground Salt and Pepper Chocolate Mexicano, which I actually haven't reviewed here, though I can't compare the ingredients as I write this (see above). TJ's is only $3.99, while Taza's is $4.50 on its website and $5-6 in stores around my city. I don't have the Taza product here, but I can review TJ's discs alone. So how are they?

Appearance: This actually has a slightly darker, redder undertone than last week's 70% bar, despite being lower cacao (I think). Again, it's glossy with a grainy cross-section, due to the stone-ground cacao and sugar crystals.

Smell: Rich, dark, and a little sweet, with the black pepper adding a spiciness that doesn't stand out but rather makes the chocolate smell more complex.

Taste: Again, the texture is gritty, reflecting both the cacao and the sugar. The first flavors that hit me are salty-savory and sweet, not chocolatey, which is interesting. The salt and pepper don't taste strongly salty or peppery but rather contribute to an overall savory flavor, with the flavor-enhancing properties of salt and the slow burn of pepper. The sweetness stands out, probably because of the lower cacao content (I think) as well as the separate sugar crystals, which makes it a little too sweet for me but does provide a good counterpoint to the savoriness of the salt and pepper. Personally I'd like to taste this spice blend in 70% cacao, but it works if you like more sugar in your chocolate.

Conclusion: Trader Joe's Organic Stone Ground Salt & Pepper Dark Chocolate is sweet and savory, with the interestingly gritty texture of stone-ground cacao.

Madre Chocolate Pink Peppercorn & Smoked Salt Hawaiian Dark Chocolate

1.5oz (43g) bar

Ingredients: Hawaiian cacao beans, organic sugar, o. cocoa butter, Mexican whole vanilla, Hawaiian pink peppercorn, Hawaiian mesquite smoked salt

Corporate Info: (Copied 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. 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.

[Update 9/5: I forgot to change these scheduled posts to indicate that reader Emma has pointed out that the mold Madre uses is mass produced, and you can find it here. Now you know.]

Today's Bar: This is the one recommended to me by reader Emma, pink peppercorn and smoked salt in 70% cacao.

Appearance: Matte, slightly greyish brown chocolate with flecks of dark pink peppercorn and small salt flakes under the surface and on the back.

Smell: When I opened the package, this emitted a powerful herby peppercorn scent. Now, much later, close sniffing still finds pink peppercorn's prickly, resiny odor.

Taste: Texture is Madre's usual crunchy then smooth, with a strong, well incorporated hit of pink peppercorn. There's nothing hot or spicy here, just herbaceous and with minor support from occasional salt crystals. Unlike some other pink peppercorn chocolate I've tried, this contains such small pieces of the spice that I'm not getting the papery rind caught in my teeth, just a hint of grit and a lot of flavor. I don't taste a lot of smoke here, but it's not missed...perhaps it just contributes to complexity.

Conclusion: Madre Chocolate Pink Peppercorn & Smoked Salt Hawaiian Dark Chocolate is a must-try for lovers of pink peppercorn mixed with chocolate.

Green & Black's Maya Gold

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Organic fair trade chocolate, oft. raw cane sugar, oft. cocoa butter, soy lecithin, orange and spice flavor, oft. vanilla, o. whole milk powder

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

Corporate Info: Check out this Brand Overview from March.

Today's Bar: Maya Gold is Green & Black's nod to “Mexican” or otherwise “Central American”-themed chocolate flavorings. Often that's a mix of hot chile and cinnamon, maybe pepper and/or vanilla; here it's (according to the website) a non-hot combo of orange, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla, and they're claiming inspiration from the Maya of southern Belize.

Appearance: Green & Black's usual semi-glossy chocolate in a lightly scored mold. Color is kind of flat looking, with a purplish undertone.

Smell: Well-incorporated sweetness and light spice; the nutmeg stands out along with what I'm guessing is orange oil rather than some other orange extract.

Taste: I've had Maya Gold before and liked it, as it conforms to Green & Black's standard: Thoroughly flavored, balanced, not challenging. Texture is thick and rich. Flavor is sweet (it's only 55% cacao) but entirely appropriate to the chocolate here, as while it does have bitter and sour tones, they're all curve, no edge. Similarly, the spices are complex but blend entirely. Think of, say, a good oatmeal cookie or pumpkin pie, which should taste redolent of autumnal spices rather than separate cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, and so on—they just have an aura of warmth that lingers pleasantly, in this case for a rather long time. I do think the nutmeg is standing out and perhaps the orange (we're not talking citrus here, but rather heady, aromatic orange oil), whereas I don't get a lot of cinnamon, and to my taste buds vanilla is more backup than headliner. So some flavors are louder than others, but they harmonize well.

Conclusion: Green & Black's Maya Gold isn't challenging, but as an everyday flavored chocolate its spice and balance excels.

Madécasse Exotic Pepper

2.64oz (75g) bar

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

10g sugar/37.5g serving (26.7% by wt.)

Corporate Info: (Altered from 4/21/12) 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—the name is apparently old French for Madagascar—produces a relatively small selection of plain chocolate and bars flavored with Madagascar-sourced inclusions like coffee and spices.

This Bar: Today I'm following last week's pink peppercorn and combava bar with another pepper combination, this time in 70% cacao: black pepper, pink pepper again, and tsiperifery pepper (or, from what I'm seeing online, Voatsiperifery). The last seems to be a Madagascar native, and I'm mostly just finding it on commercial sites, described by one as “pungent . . . earthy and woody . . . a wee bit sweet . . . distinct fragrance . . . citrus notes . . . long lasting and without rage.” Neat.

Appearance: Glossy, vivid chestnut brown.

Smell: Not strong, beany, with a hint of black pepper

Taste: Waxy texture followed by low- to mid-volume, integrated, very complex pepper flavor, from classic black pepper to more tingly, herby, “green” flavors to dried, woodsy, “brown” flavors. The flavor of the chocolate itself is raw and beany (as opposed to smooth, creamy, roasted, etc), which makes the whole experience very earthy. The flavor is a bit of a contrast with the waxy texture, and now that I think of it, I think that the texture, along with the low-medium volume of the pepper, keeps this bar from being overwhelmingly earthy (it un-grounds it, heh).

Often I eat a bar and struggle to figure out what to say about it—“it tastes like chocolate”—so it's always a fun to encounter one that gives me food for thought, as it were. Do I absolutely love this? I dunno. But I like the thought behind it, and the thoughts that arise when I eat it.

Conclusion: Madécasse Exotic Pepper is earthy and complex but not overwhelming, and it offers a lot to ponder.

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.

German Chocolate: Two Pink Peppercorn (Rosa Pfeffer) Bars

REWE Dark Chocolate 66% Cacao Pink Peppercorn (Rosa Pfeffer)

 

75g bar

Ingredients: cocoa mass, sugar [translated as either “cane sugar” or “sucrose”], cocoa butter, pink peppercorns

37.3% sugar by wt.

Leysieffer Dark Chocolate with Pink Peppercorns (Rosa Pfeffer)

 

100g bar

Ingredients: sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, pink peppercorns, soy lecithin

The last two of my German chocolate bars share an inclusion uncommon in the U.S, pink peppercorns. Pink peppercorns come from two non-pepper plants from Central and South America, and while I've seen them here in spice shops and peppercorn mixes, for whatever reason they seem to be more popular in Germany. One of these bars was my first random chocolate buy, a funky flavored, inexpensive store brand from a big chain supermarket called REWE (“RAY-vuh”) that was near one of our hotels. Later, when I was selecting flavors at Leysieffer, I decided to buy one of their rosa pfeffer bars for comparison's sake. The REWE bar is 66% cacao, and the Leysieffer is their usual 55%.

Both bars mostly smell like chocolate, but they certainly taste like more! The REWE bar is thin, with crispy, slightly chewy peppercorns. The chocolate is pretty mild, of the creamy/chalky variety, and the peppercorns have a little pepperiness, but it's not strong—herby flavor, no bite. The Leysieffer chocolate is thicker, sweeter, and waxier, and its peppercorns have more spice and maybe more crunch to them as well. FYI, the shiny, crisp peppercorn skin doesn't really taste like anything; it's the crunchy little UFO-shaped seed inside that has the bitter, resiny flavor that feels like a super-light cousin of spicy black pepper or numbing Sichuan peppercorns.

For me, the REWE bar was kind of insipid, and the Leysieffer chocolate's sweetness didn't do anything for the herby peppercorns the way they did for elderflower and rose. Contrary to expectations, I ended up finding pink peppercorn chocolate boring, and I wonder if I wouldn't like this better with a darker chocolate and maybe a small amount of another type of peppercorn, upping the intensity of both chocolate and inclusion. For what it's worth, my co-taster thought the Leysieffer was pretty good.

Pink peppercorn + chocolate conclusion: For me, the mild chocolate and complex but relatively quiet pink peppercorn flavors just weren't enough, but I could see how others might like the combination.

[Note: I traveled with these and also moved them around a bit before opening them, so both the chocolate and peppercorns are more broken than when I first bought the bars.]

German Chocolate: Leysieffer Cardamom Dark Chocolate (Kardamom Schokolade)

100g bar

Ingredients: [I forgot to write these down, but I believe they were just sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, and cardamom.]

Last week I introduced Leysieffer; today's question is about the combination of chocolate (in this case a mild, somewhat-dark chocolate) and cardamom. I usually associate cardamom with Indian curries, where their cool, spicy intensity is combined with a host of other spices, so I don't spend a lot of time with just cardamom. This should be interesting!

Here's a little background on cardamom: Cardamom is related to ginger, but the spice we use in cooking is a seed pod, not a root, so you won't notice any similarity aside from strong flavor. Two varietals are cultivated widely, one small and green and one bigger and brown. The oblong seed pod or ground seeds are used in many different types of preparations—food, drink, medicine—in India, the Middle East, other parts of Asia, and some Northern European countries (presumably a colonial remnant). I couldn't tell you which type is in this chocolate, but the picture on the front is of stylized brown seed pods.

So, cardamom in chocolate.... It smells great: bright and spicy. Here the cardamom is front and center, and the chocolate is more of a foundation, filling out the scent's complexity. The flavor is similar, not shying away from the cardamom at all, with the chocolate playing backup. I'm not sure I'd say cardamom's piney (wikipedia says “resinous”) flavor is a total natural with chocolate, but it's not a total mismatch, and to be fair I'm also not accustomed to cardamom as a standard sort of ingredient.

Cardamom + chocolate conclusion: For cardamom lovers and adventurous eaters.

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.