Whole Foods 71% Cacao Costa Rica Dark Chocolate

3.5oz (100g) bar

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

10g sugar/38g serving (26.3% by wt.)

The other day I stopped by Whole Foods for vegetables and discovered that the chain had changed its entire line of store brand chocolate bars. The new line presumably aims at the same demographic—people who will spend extra for local/organic/fair trade/sustainable and are leery of unpronounceable ingredients, i.e. Whole Foods shoppers—but the change seems to be an attempt to stay within current trends in both sustainability and chocolate consumption. The old chocolate was your basic “Milk chocolate” or “Dark chocolate with almonds” in bright, simple packaging, sometimes using the words “organic” or the classic, evocative “Swiss.” The new line includes more dark varieties, single-origin bars, and upscale flavoring combinations in Vosges-shaped thin boxes bearing lots of words, sustainability-certification-type stamps, earthy colors, and photos of people and sights in tropical locales. They're also marketing it under their Whole Foods brand rather than under their 365 “value” brand.

I bought three of the new bars to review over the next weeks, among them today's 71% single-origin Costa Rican bar (but made in Belgium, so there's still some Euro-cachet). Incidentally, this bar's carries Whole Foods' self-defined Whole Trade Guarantee and is made with Rainforest Alliance Certified cacao. These distinctions are, like organic, fair trade, direct trade, and all those others, complicated and varying degrees of meaningful to the well-intentioned consumer. I won't pretend to fully understand them (I suspect very few people really do), and one of these days I'd like to write a post on whatever I can learn about the real-world significance of each. Compared to eating chocolate, that's frustrating and boring, so it's on the back burner.

Corporate Info: After all the above, let's keep this one short. Whole Foods Market is a major American supermarket chain focusing on upscale and health food. People have all sorts of opinions on it because of its relatively high prices (at least in part because of the nature of the products, maybe also because its customers are willing to pay more), penchant for taking over regional health food chains, and outspoken co-founder/one-time CEO, but it also gives health-food devotees supermarket-style access to their preferred products, including many of the chocolate bars I review here.

Appearance: Surface is semi-glossy and finely textured, with a red-orange undertone.

Smell: Big, warm, round—that is, there's a lot of aroma but nothing pungent. Like ripe cherries or berries or something.

Taste: Texture is creamy, waxy, rich, mouth-coating. Flavor is full, not too sweet, not at all sour or bitter. This is the crowd-pleaser of very dark chocolates, fruity and winey without any challenging or unpleasant edges.

Conclusion: Whole Foods 71% Cacao Costa Rica Dark Chocolate is exactly what an upscale store brand would do when attempting to make a good-quality but not off-putting fairly dark chocolate.

B.T. McElrath Salty Dog Chocolate Bar

3oz (85g) bar

Ingredients: Chocolate liquor, sugar (in the chocolate), cane sugar (in the toffee), cocoa butter, soy lecithin, butter, bicarbonate of soda, natural flavor, salt (in the toffee), sea salt (on the back of the bar)

17g sugar/43g serving (39.5% by wt.)

Corporate Info: Minneapolis's B.T. McElrath was founded by a chef, and accordingly seems to focus on creating unusual flavored bars and confections like Sweet Potato Pavé and Buttered Toast. B.T. McElrath's Chile Limón Bar is one of my favorites, and now that I'm eating a little more sugar, I can venture into the other 70% bars, including today's Salty Dog.

Appearance: Very glossy, richly hued reddish-brown with pale flecks under the surface and sea salt evenly sprinkled on the back.

Smell: Not strong, but with a hint of roasted beans and nuts.

Taste: Creamy chocolate, a lot of salt, toffee is more subtle in very small bits of crunch and low-key caramel flavor. The chocolate is mild, so even though it's 70% cacao the sweetness of the chocolate (not the toffee) stands out. Additionally, the salt doesn't seem to have a good counterpoint, which makes me wonder about the whole salt-sweet concept. I'm thinking that it's not just sugar and salt that work against each other, it's burnt sugar/caramel specifically that's so wonderfully enlivened by salt. Thus, I'd say there's too much sugar in chocolate form and not enough in toffee form to really play off the salt here. I've seen this bar many times and have the impression that it's pretty popular, but to my taste there's a balance issue that the Chile Limón bar didn't have. It's all very interesting, and I'd love to try more B.T. McElrath products.

Conclusion: For me, B.T. McElrath Salty Dog Chocolate Bar has too much sugar and not enough toffee to balance well with the mild chocolate and abundant salt.

Justin's organic 2 dark chocolate peanut butter cups

1.4oz in two peanut butter cups

Ingredients: Organic cane sugar, o. chocolate liquor, o. cocoa butter, o. soy lecithin, o. vanilla, o. peanuts, o. palm oil, sea salt

14g sugar/40g serving (35% by wt.)

Corporate Info: Justin's—a.k.a. Justin's Nut Butter—is a nut butter company, not a chocolatier, but I like peanut butter cups and Justin's makes a dark chocolate peanut butter cup, so there you go. Justin's products are mostly organic, and they claim to be trying for sustainability in a whole assortment of ways. Good for them. Also, with a hometown of Boulder, Colorado, Justin's is neighbor to Chocolove and SunSpire.

Appearance: Pretty nice. The wide, flat cups, glossy chocolate, and (in cross-section) good amount of crumbly-looking peanut butter make these comparable to Reese's ultra-popular version. I have as much Reese's nostalgia as anyone, so a decision to emulate the big boys seems like a good one to me.

Smell: As you'd expect, but with a somewhat greater emphasis on the chocolate than most. That chocolate has a red-berry tartness to the smell rather than being the usual super-mild and sweet type.

Taste: On first bite, I think: sweet...very smooth and creamy chocolate...yes the peanut butter has some crumbly-crunchy going on...lingering sugar and red fruit tartness. I wish the peanut butter stood out more; I'm thinking that, compared to milk chocolate cups, dark chocolate ones need a higher ratio of peanut butter to stand up to the chocolate, even if the chocolate isn't crazy intense (and this isn't). Not bad, though.

Conclusion: Justin's organic 2 dark chocolate peanut butter cups are a fine organic, small-company Reese's substitute, but the peanut butter flavor tends to get overwhelmed by the flavorful chocolate.

Madécasse 75% Cocoa Single Origin Madagascar

2.64oz (75g) bar

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

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

Corporate Info: 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. In the past I've tried and liked the 63% cacao barwith sea salt and nibs, and today I'm trying a basic 75% bar the wrapper describes as “dark & bold.”

Appearance: Basic semi-glossy, medium brown, not especially red or grey or anything.

Smell: Warm and sweet, caramelly dried fruit.

Taste: Texture is crunchy melting into creamy. Intense, tannic—that is, bitter in a drying, astringent way. It's pretty hardcore when it first hits, but as the chocolate melts, the thick, rich creaminess mellows the flavor so it's still intense but not like a punch in the mouth. Indeed dark and bold!

Conclusion: Madécasse 75% Cocoa Single Origin Madagascar is intense and thickly creamy, good for those who like their chocolate assertively dark.

SunSpire Fair Trade Organic Baking Bar Unsweetened Chocolate

4oz (113g) bar

Ingredients: Organic fair trade unsweetened chocolate

I haven't bought a lot of SunSpire products, as they have that old-school health-food look about them that doesn't inspire (heh) tasty chocolate confidence. I'm finally trying this baking bar because it was on sale, I use a decent amount of chocolate, and I'd like to support organic and fair trade production when I can. That said, it's 100% cacao, so unless it's François Pralus it probably won't be a joy to eat as is.

Today I'm trying SunSpire's chocolate plain and in hot chocolate, which for me consists of chocolate, sugar, vanilla, and soy milk. You may make your cocoa differently, but since I drink it nearly daily using various chocolate bars and cocoa powders, I do have some basis for comparison.

Corporate Info: SunSpire's parent company is The Hain Celestial Group, owners of a huge range of health food brands, among them Greek Gods; Arrowhead Mills; Spectrum; Celestial Seasonings; Rice Dream, Soy Dream and WestSoy (milk replacers); Alba and Avalon Organics and Jāson (personal care products); and of course Hain Pure Foods. It's really big. Hain is headquartered in a town in Long Island, New York; customer service is in Celestial Seasonings' hometown of Boulder, Colorado; and Hain Celestial also operates in Canada and Europe.

Appearance: Very matte, washed-out brown.

Smell: Vivid, beany, tart, raw.

Taste: Bitter and chalky, leaving a chalky residue. It doesn't make much of an impression other than that texture and the bitterness hovering around it.

In Hot Chocolate: My cocoa with SunSpire unsweetened wasn't great, less because of flavor than because of the same chalky texture I tasted in the bar. It was like regular hot chocolate with additional chalk dust, which thickened the cocoa slightly and then, after I swallowed, lingered dryly on the inside of my mouth. Too bad.

Conclusion: SunSpire Fair Trade Organic Baking Bar Unsweetened Chocolate is more memorable for its weirdly chalky texture than its flavor.

Vivani Dark Chocolate with Orange

3.5oz (100g)

Ingredients: Organic cocoa liquor, o. raw cane sugar, o. cocoa butter, o. orange oil

11g sugar/42g serving (26.2% by wt.)

Corporate Info: Vivani is a young subsidiary of Germany's Weinrich (a.k.a. corporate-sounding Ludwig Weinrich GmbH & Co. KG), and I've seen a selection of its bars all around Seattle, including today's Dark Chocolate with Orange. Vivani's focus is on being organic, so much so that the company's unveiling was at an organic trade fair. They also make claims about the positive effect of their farming practices on local communities as well as avoiding genetically modified ingredients (like common emulsifier soy lecithin), a widespread concern in Europe.

Appearance: Slightly reddish and fairly matte.

Smell: Rich with a little spice.

Taste: Texture is fatty-creamy and mouth-filling, the kind that coats your tongue and teeth and makes you want to sip some water. That's not good or bad, just a matter of preference. The flavor reminds me of what perfumers call “Orientals”—”exotic” woods and spices like nutmeg and cedar that make the whole bar taste rich, with the bitter edge of citrus peel. (To be clear though, this is relatively subtle, not like, say, Leysieffer's cardamom bar.) All in all, orange oil doesn't really do it for me as a chocolate additive, but from a more objective standpoint I think the unexpected complexity it contributes is pretty neat.

Conclusion: Vivani Dark Chocolate with Orange offers that complex orange oil spiciness that may or may not be right up your alley.

Vosges Blood Orange Caramel Bar

 

3oz (85g) bar

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla, organic cream, corn syrup, Campari, hibiscus powder, orange zest, blood orange puree, water, sea salt

Vosges' blood orange caramel-filled bar was suggested to me by reader Emma after she read my post praising the similar Black Salt Caramel Bar. Vosges seems to do well with subtle complexity; will this bar fit that mold?

Corporate Info: (mostly copied from 9/24/11): Vosges is based in Chicago and produces a pretty wide variety of adventurously flavored bars and confections, among them the famous bacon chocolate. In the past I have been annoyed by the pretentious copy on the back of the box, and it's silly here too, but the website keeps the flowery text off the front page, and of course it's not as important as the chocolate!

Appearance: Subtle gloss, uniform deep brown color, cleanly stamped. Breaking a corner off reveals a gooey, somewhat liquidy caramel that makes this bar messier than the salt caramel one. (Yes, I know it looks like there's a slug sandwiched in my chocolate there on the left. Not particularly appetizing.)

Smell: Rich, a little dried fruit and nuts, but very cohesive: no smells stand out or seem removed from the central scent. I don't get any particular blood orange or caramel here, though the box claims some “bright citrus.”

Taste: The chocolate is super smooth, creamy, and nutty, and the caramel has, yes, a complex and subtle perfumey sweet-sour flavor. I can't tease out the blood orange vs. hibiscus vs. orange zest vs. Campari, but as with the smell I think that's where Vosges excels, combining ingredients in such a balanced way that they create something new, and that's pretty great. Unfortunately, though, there are downsides to this bar, mostly relating to the consistency of the caramel. First, it does indeed make for sloppy eating. Second, Vosges recommends breaking off “a small piece” and holding it against the roof of your mouth with your tongue until “within thirty seconds the chocolate square will begin to melt”; this is impossible with a bar that consistently breaks in the middle of each delicate square, smashing the caramel between shards of chocolate and leaving you with sticky pieces of the solid chocolate between squares. Third, the problem with this (aside from the mess) is that when you eat those pieces, the caramel melts away before the chocolate does, the equivalent of eating an outstanding sandwich inside-out rather than being able to fully enjoy the magical combination of bread and filling. I suspect the whole experience of this bar would be made better just by thickening the caramel.

Conclusion: Vosges Blood Orange Caramel Bar demonstrates Vosges' skill with subtlety and depth of flavor, but the too-thin caramel detracts from the experience.