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.

Sahagún Palomitapapá

25g/0.9oz bar (self-weighed)

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla, corn, soy oil, fleur de sel, chile (cocoa is Ecuadorian)

Corporate Info: Sahagún (or, judging by the website, Sahagun) is a tiny little company that currently makes a few barks, a couple filled confections, and one coffee flavored bar. I must have bought funky little Palomitapapá at Cacao in Portland, drawn in by the “exploded corn” in the ingredients list. (Note: I can only find this bar as part of a bark three-pack, which I'm guessing means the company switches up its flavors from time to time.) If you're interested in Sahagún's South American names and ingredients, philosophy, or future plans, you can read an interview with owner Elizabeth Montes here.

Appearance: Nubbly and barky, with exposed salt crystals on top.

Smell: Not too much, actually.

Taste: First chile, more than I was expecting but not to a give-me-a-glass-of-water extent. Then salt, then the relatively subtle flavor and not at all subtle texture of the corn kernels, which are more chewy-crunchy than puffy like popcorn. The spiciness lingers, and the kernels get stuck in my teeth, and all in all the chocolate is just a flavor element rather than the headliner here. Hm, there's not a lot to say except that this is a fun experience if you're into the ingredients.

Conclusion: Sahagún Palomitapapá is fun if you want chile, crunchy corn, and salt with your chocolate.

Pacari Chocolate Covered Cacao Beans

90g (3.17oz) box; mine contained 31 chocolate covered beans

Ingredients: Organic cacao beans, o. cane sugar, o. cocoa powder, o. sunflower lecithin

Corporate Info: Pacari Chocolate is single-origin (Ecuador), organic, and according to them, fair trade minus the certification. Most of what I'm seeing about the company is from commercial sites, so I'll just say that they sound good, in an upscale, rainforesty sort of way: Pacari offers local-origin bars from different plantations, flavored bars, chocolate covered tropical things (fruits, coffee beans, etc), and a few other earthy-crunchy-super-local items, including today's chocolate covered cacao beans dusted with cocoa powder.

Appearance: Dusty, oblong, irregular. Appealingly rugged.

Smell: Intense, sharp, with warm notes—ginger, cardamom, that kind of vibe.

Taste: In layers, what you've got is: First, a fine dusting of powder that has almost no taste; its only real effect is allowing the chocolate underneath to remain both protected and creamy, which is to my mind preferable to to the shiny, shellacked texture of some other chocolate-covered treats. Second, a medium-thin layer of creamy, tart chocolate. If you sit and savor that layer it's actually raw-tasting compared to other chocolate, but if you mostly chomp down like I am, the contrast with the cacao bean makes it seem very smooth and sweet. Finally, a large cacao bean with a papery outside and nut-textured, crunchy-crumbly inside. The bean is almost deceptively neutral flavored in its unrefined, unsweetened, low-bitterness, nutty non-intensity. I've eaten nibs that had a more distinctive, banana-tropical flavor that these beans don't, and I like these here. Very good.

Conclusion: Pacari Chocolate Covered Cacao Beans are rustic, have nice texture and flavor contrast, and are easy to keep eating. Warning: Too many can make you (me) hyperactive!

El Ceibo Bolivia 77% Dark Chocolate Cocoa Nibs & Uyuni Salt

2.8oz (80g) bar

Ingredients: Organic cocoa mass, sugar, o. cocoa nibs, cocoa butter, salt, soy lecithin

Corporate Info: I'd never heard of El Ceibo before, but it turns out the Bolivian cooperative is pretty great, bringing together various indigenous groups and becoming a model for South American farming cooperatives in general. In collaboration with a European chocolatier (site is in French), El Ceibo makes only a few products for the international market. Today's choice, their 77% bar with nibs and salt, includes salt from a the world's largest salt flats, which are, not coincidentally, in Bolivia.

Appearance: Not very glossy, European-style thin and flat, greyish-reddish.

Smell: Raw and beany, with cacao's buttermilky tang.

Taste: Super smooth chocolate punctuated by nut-textured, more intense nibs. Chocolate is indeed tangy but not sour. Sugar is well-incorporated: I would say it's not at all sweet, but obviously that's not true, it's just that the sugar balances the chocolate's bite and no more. Salt is supposedly in crunchy crystals, but I'm only rarely picking them up; it's more like when cooks add enough salt to a dish to enhance the flavor without making it taste “salty.” Overall, this is pure, bright, smooth-textured, slightly tannic beaniness, with nibs for flavor and texture contrast. Good stuff.

Conclusion: El Ceibo Bolivia 77% Dark Chocolate Cocoa Nibs & Uyuni Salt doesn't taste gimmicky, it's just good, pure, bright, chocolatey flavor with a little extra something.

Chocolove Almonds & Sea Salt in Dark Chocolate 55% Cocoa

3.2oz (90g) bar

Ingredients: Cocoa liquor, sugar, almonds, cocoa butter, sea salt, soy lecithin, vanilla

11g sugar/30g serving (36.7% by wt.)

When I was flipping through my bag of to-be-reviewed bars a couple weeks ago, I found that I had bought several flavored with sea salt and decided to review them as a pack. I started with the Vosges and Trader Joe's caramel bars, followed a tangent with another Trader Joe's bar, and am back this week with Chocolove Almonds & Sea Salt in 55% Cocoa.

Meta-moment: I've been violating the old maximum-1/3-sugar rule for two reasons: 1) Health-wise, I can do that now, and 2) many interesting bars come in dark chocolate bases that are a little higher in sugar than my usual. Unsurprisingly, I often find them too sweet for my taste, but with common brands like Chocolove, I have frequently seen the whole product line on sale and really wanted to give some fun flavors a try. So now I am.

Corporate Info: I have a soft spot for Chocolove, having lived in near its hometown of Boulder, Colorado and enjoyed the company's samples in my local Whole Foods. It's a relatively young company (Wikipedia says 1996; Chocolove's website doesn't say), hasn't yet been bought by a giant conglomerate, and is supposedly working with these guys to source its chocolate from well-treated cocoa farmers and communities. On the other hand, the chocolate isn't officially organic or fair trade, and Chocolove is rated a C by the Better World folks (same as Hershey's, much better than Nestle), so I don't want to give them my unconditional Choco-love (ha ha, I crack me up). But it's cheaper than most premium chocolate—$2-2.50 a bar—and reliably tasty.

Appearance: Chocolove's usual quilted-looking, heart-topped shape, kind of a greyish brown, very glossy, bumpy on the back.

Smell: Sweet, nutty.

Taste: Okay, yeah, it's too sweet for me and not super-dark, which makes it hard to pick out the other flavors. What I can say is that you get entire halved almonds and a well-incorporated, non-dominant saltiness. The wrapper says something about salt crystals, and that very well may be true, but they must be pretty small; while it doesn't taste like the salt is dissolved into the chocolate, there's more uniformity to it than I've found in other salty bars.

Conclusion: Chocolove Almonds & Sea Salt in Dark Chocolate 55% Cocoa didn't taste like anything special to me, but if you like almonds and salt in a relatively light dark chocolate, maybe it would be great to you.