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.

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

2oz (57g) bar

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

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

Corporate Info: (Copied from last week.) As of this writing Shaman's website is under construction, but the bar packaging explains that the point of the company is to support Mexico's indigenous Huichol people. I've found a lot of positive commentary on assorted unfamiliar-to-me websites and an A rating by the Better World Shopper; I hope this organic, fair trade chocolate's actual practices live up to the hype.

Appearance: Reddish, glossy, with inclusions visible on the back and more air bubbles than the 82% bar.

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

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

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

Update: Germany!........and Blog Glitches

This, my friends, is a view of just part of the chocolate section of a department store in Bremen, Germany. I'm back from three weeks traveling through the country, and while I certainly didn't go just for the chocolate, I was frankly overwhelmed by the options Germany presents. I found confectionary shops all over the place, saw wide ranges from companies I'd only glimpsed in the US, visited a chocolate museum, came home with nine bars, and wish I'd bought more.

So what to talk about on the blog? I figure in this economy most people won't be hopping a plane to Europe, so I don't want to bore you with detailed reviews of chocolate you won't find in the U.S. Instead, I intend to start by posting general observations about chocolate in Germany, big or little things that surprised me or otherwise were different than what we see here. Then I'd like to write about the museum, which has a partnership with Lindt but nonetheless addresses other companies and the morally complex history of chocolate production and marketing, and—not at all controversial, but still cool—how chocolate is made, with a working small-scale assembly line. Finally, I think the bars I chose to review are interesting because they're all about the inclusions and flavorings, ones I have rarely or never seen in the U.S.; how well will chocolate pair with florals, or spices, or even beer?

While I work on these posts, you'll see some pre-scheduled reviews I wrote before I left. On that note, I want to apologize for the glitches over the last few weeks. I set reviews to publish weekly and see now that the first one isn't there, but I received a now-deleted comment on that post so it must have gone up at some point, and Blogger still claims it's “scheduled” for 5/12. I also had less internet access than I'd anticipated, which made moderating comments difficult. Thanks for bearing with me!

Shaman Organic Chocolates 82% Cacao Extra Dark Chocolate

2oz (57g) bar

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

5g sugar/28.5g serving (17.5% by wt.)

Corporate Info: 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: Small bar, reddish brown, glossy, with little air bubbles in the corners.

Smell: Not strong but bright and fresh, like unripe stone fruit.

Taste: Raw, sourish, a little harsh but muted, not off-putting. Some tannins but not heavy, like a light red wine. Chalky texture, drying. I'm struck by how different this is from last week's Michel Cluizel bar; chocolate is so interesting!

Conclusion: Shaman Organic Chocolates 82% Cacao Extra Dark Chocolate is light, fresh, and dry.

Michel Cluizel Noir de Cacao 72%

100g (3.5oz) bar

Ingredients: Cocoa, cane sugar, cocoa butter, Bourbon vanilla

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

Corporate Info: 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: Rather dark, sightly glossy, sharply molded.

Smell: Dried fruit: fig, raisin, that sort of thing.

Taste: Buttery in flavor and texture. Both bitter and sweet. Fairly mild, actually—the bitterness is a flavor, not a mouth-drying, tannic experience, and it fades while the sweetness lingers and lingers, like drinking a sip of coffee and then eating a big raisin.

Conclusion: Buttery Michel Cluizel Noir de Cacao 72% starts bitter and ends a little too sweet for my taste.

Dear Readers, I'm far from home and posting this (badly) from my phone. See you in a couple weeks!

Equal Exchange Orange Dark Chocolate 65%

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

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

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

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

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

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