Endangered Species Chocolate Dark Chocolate with Deep Forest Mint 72% Cocoa

3oz (85g) bar

Ingredients: Bittersweet chocolate (chocolate liquor, beet sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla), mint flavor

12g sugar/43g serving (27.9% by wt.)

For me, Green & Black’s 85% is intense, perhaps too much in large doses but also loyal and worth returning to again and again. In that context I’ve found the Endangered Species bars to be affable filler: appealing at first glance, easy to keep around, a pleasant diversion, but never delivering more than expected--and sometimes less. To their credit they are available all over the place and at a reasonable price point (often on sale), come in several strengths and flavors that fit my requirements, and taste good enough. I often buy two or three at a time and keep them around for when I want to choose from a variety of flavored bars. Where they fall short is simply that there’s better out there: more interesting, more vivid, more whatever.

The mint flavored bar is a typical example. It’s sweet but not saccharine, a bit chalky, with a mild but not faded chocolatey-ness. There’s only a hint of mint, barely enough to cool your breath. I’m not saying a bar should wallop you over the head with its mix-ins--if you’ve read my other posts you know I’m sensitive to balance (albeit based on my personal tastes)—but there’s something to be said for having a mint bar taste of mint, you know?

Still, it’s perfectly fine, and I think sometimes it’s okay to pass on the challenging and passionate and fill out your dance card with the ready and amiable.

Conclusion: Endangered Species Dark Chocolate with Mint 72% Cocoa is over-mild, but it will do.

Blanxart Dark Chocolate origin Ghana 80% Cacao

1.7oz (48g) bar

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

10g sugar/48g serving (20.8% by wt.)

[Note: Blanxart’s website isn’t the most user-friendly, so most of the links here are to outside sites (none of which I necessarily endorse).]

I’ve found Spanish chocolatier Blanxart’s products intriguing in the past, so I bought three different bars to review. One, the Chocolate a la Taza bar intended for making hot chocolate, turned out to be clearly mislabeled in terms of sugar content (among other things), so while I like it, it will have to be eaten by someone else. Said Someone Else polished off the entire bar of Dark Chocolate 85% with Nibs before I had a chance to taste it and then asked me to buy another.  Take from that what you will, and I’ll officially review the bar another time. I did still have most of the small Dark Chocolate origin Ghana 80%, which also comes in a full 3.5oz (100g) size, so by default it’ll be my first review of Blanxart’s chocolate.

Unfortunately, the fat little 1.7 oz bar presents a problem right off. It’s a dense, hard chocolate molded into what are essentially scored blocks (rather than thin tiles), so how do you eat it? You could chip away at it with a knife or chocolate chipper, as from a big block for baking, but it doesn’t seem like that was what this bar was made for. It’s not waxy, so you can’t bite through it cleanly; it fractures and comes off in crunchy chunks. I did resort to this option (trying to avoid the alternative, sloppy gnawing), but “crunchy” isn’t an ideal texture for plain chocolate, and with each brittle bite I got little chocolate crumbs on my shirt. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and consider that perhaps it’s just too chilly now, and this bar might soften up in the summer heat.

Flavor-wise, I want to be a fan, but I can’t. To my taste buds this bar is just too sweet, even given the relatively low amount of sugar on the label. Bars with milk, or perhaps a different balance of flavors, seem to meld chocolate and sugar well. Here the two seemed separate, with a thin but sickly sweetness hitting me right away, staying throughout, and even hanging around minutes after I’d swallowed. The chocolate underneath tastes like it must be interesting, not de-fanged ersatz chocolate, but I had a hard time appreciating it because the sugar was so dominant. Adding to the problem slightly is the texture: Once crunched, the chocolate at least melts quickly in the mouth, but it’s very creamy in a way that adds to the sense of syrupy sweetness.

I’ve had some great bars from Blanxart (often with too high a sugar content for me at present) and I hope to review more. I’m sorry to say I didn’t like this one, but hey, at least I didn’t spring for the full size!

Conclusion: Blanxart Dark Chocolate origin Ghana 80% Cacao is too sweet and difficult to eat. 

Lindt Creation 70% Pure Chocolate

5.3oz (150g) bar

Ingredients: Chocolate, sugar, cocoa butter, butterfat, cocoa powder, soya lecithin, vanilla extract

11g sugar/45g serving (24.4% by wt.)

Last week I gave Lindt its first review on this blog, and it was a poor one. At the end I noted that I wasn’t writing Lindt off entirely, and this week I wanted to make good on that promise by reviewing an entirely different sort of bar, the Creation line’s mousse-filled Pure Chocolate. (The other two Creation bars are Cherry & Chili and Orange, which layer a fruit syrup on top of the same mousse.) I’ve bought this bar several times before and enjoyed it as an alternative to a solid bar, and though I usually find it for about $5, it’s less than $1 per ounce, which I consider reasonable for decent chocolate.

Incidentally, the large bar is divided into only 10 squares, and I don’t always want that much chocolate at once. Fortunately the mousse is fairly solid, so I break the squares into smaller pieces inside the packaging and fish them out to eat at my leisure. (By contrast, the syrup-filled bars are gooey and messy. Since quickly scarfing a whole square isn’t always pleasant or cost-effective, I don’t buy them often.) Eating angular shards is actually even nicer, because the denser outer layers often separate from the creamier inner one, which highlights the fun difference in textures. As for the flavor, it's fairly uniform but well balanced, creamy and mild but unmistakably dark, and just tart enough to be interesting. I wouldn’t call it complex or especially deep, but it has some edge, and a lingering finish that doesn’t turn bitter.

Conclusion: Lindt Creation 70% Pure Chocolate is a bit different but not so silly as to be merely novel. It's a good twist on the plain bar.


Update 08/10: I've been looking for the Creation line for months but haven't seen it on store shelves and it's no longer listed on Lindt's website. They do list other dark truffle-filled bars, none dark enough to qualify for this blog. Shame--I write one positive review of Lindt and they discontinue the product!

Lindt Excellence 90% Cocoa Supreme Dark

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Chocolate, cocoa powder, cocoa butter, sugar, natural bourbon vanilla beans

3g sugar/40g serving (7.5% by wt.)

I put off writing this review mostly because I had computer trouble, but also because I knew I eventually had to write about Lindt’s 90% cacao bar. Unlike some of the bars I’ve reviewed it’s widely available, and it’s been sitting in The Chocolate Basket for ages, so I couldn’t ignore it. I bought it when I was eating even less sugar than I am now; in fact, I was so thrilled to find such a dark bar that I went ahead and bought two. I nibbled at one a bit but didn’t like it, so it just sat there, and now the unopened one taunts me, an unpalatable reminder of my hubris and consumerism and desperation. It’s safe to say that I’ve become biased: I hate this bar.

I’ve tried 99% and 100% cacao bars, and they usually have some bitter or sour taste. This has neither, which sounds good except I’m not sure what’s left. It’s all fruit, or deep wine flavors, but without the sweetness or perfume (caramel or citrus or what have you) or tannins or anything else but Dark. It’s a vacuum of flavor, a sucking, sinking feeling. Eating it doesn’t make me wince or gag, just scowl—from cheerleader to scold in one lingering bite. Oh, and it’s a bit chalky.


Conclusion: Yuck.

I don’t want to be down on Lindt, makers of everyone’s favorite drugstore luxury, the Lindor Truffle. I’ll be happy to try their other products. I’m just not sure what to do with the rest of this one…

Green & Black’s Organic Dark Chocolate 85% Cocoa Content

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Organic chocolate liquor, o. cocoa butter, o. fat-reduced cocoa powder, o. raw cane sugar, o. vanilla extract, soy lecithin, o. whole milk powder

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

Green & Black’s 85% bar is one of my favorites, a mainstay of the Chocolate Basket and the main reason I have an abiding fondness for Green & Black’s. I don’t know why it took me this long to review it.

The mouthfeel of this bar is fairly waxy: It’s firm and very smooth, but I wouldn’t call it creamy. The flavor  is deep and fruity, with only a touch of bitterness and a minimum of the unpleasantly sour aftertaste of many other dark chocolates. As one might imagine of such a dark bar it’s not exactly sweet, but the lack of bitter and sour notes make it surprisingly easy to eat, and the depth of flavor makes it more interesting than, say, the Newman’s Own 70% bar.

Conclusion: Green & Black’s 85% bar has a mild complexity with few sharp edges. An easy eating chocolate for lovers of very dark bars.

P.S. Big player Cadbury bought Green & Black’s in 2005, but thus far it seems to have maintained Green & Black’s high quality. Now that chocolate giant Hershey’s has made a play for Cadbury, fans of Green & Black’s might wonder if the chocolate would suffer under new ownership. Stay tuned…


[Update: It's Kraft! I have no idea what this will do to Green & Black's--we'll just have to see.]

Vintage Plantations Artisanal Chocolate 75% Dark

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Pure cocoa mass, raw sugar cane, soy lecithin.

Unlike most bars I’ve eaten, Vintage Plantations' 75% doesn’t contain any vanilla, and as much as I like vanilla, I can’t say I taste the difference. (Perhaps I will later, as I become a more astute reviewer.) Then again, it does have a certain pure chocolatey-ness: neither gritty nor too creamy, not too sweet or too sour or too bitter. This bar is like a medium-bodied wine, not especially challenging but retaining a bit of edge and bite.

Conclusion: Vintage Plantations 75% Dark bar is a solid, strong bar, but it probably isn’t distinct enough that I would buy it again. 


[Edit: I'm not sure what happened to my photo of this bar; the one I originally had posted was the 90% bar. See the link above for a link to the photo on the Vintage Plantations site.]

Taza Chocolate Stone Ground Organic Chocolate 80% Dark

3oz (85g) bar

Ingredients: Cacao beans (Dominican Republic), cane sugar, cocoa butter, whole vanilla beans. (All certified organic.)

I found this bar at a specialty chocolate shop, and at $8.00 ($2.66/oz) it was one of the most expensive I’ve considered. (I later saw it for a few cents less elsewhere.) I was able to taste it in the store, and I elected to buy it despite its high price because of the stone-ground texture, which was unlike that of other chocolate I’d eaten.

Taza Chocolate’s 80% bar is gritty and almost dusty; whatever roasting and other processing may go into it, to me the texture makes it taste more “raw” than smoother, creamier bars. The flavor is also somewhat challenging, because it has a clear sour note, coming across as bright rather than deeply fruity, with a bit of a bitter aftertaste. (I’ll be interested to see if this flavor profile will show up in other single-source bars from the Dominican Republic.) Because of the texture, the sugar's sweet counterpoint is distinguishable from the sour and bitter flavors—it’s almost as though the bar's flavors sit side by side in a mixture rather than being melded into one taste experience.

Conclusion: Taza Chocolate’s 80% bar is challenging and relatively expensive, so it’s not for everyone and won’t be a Chocolate Basket staple. On the other hand, if you’re interested in trying something different I’d recommend searching it out. Besides, it’s just a chocolate bar--it’s not like you’ll have to skip a car payment for this sort of luxury.

*You can read more about Taza Chocolate’s bean-to-bar process here.