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.

World Market Dark Chocolate 72% Cacao

3oz (85g) bar

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

11g sugar/43g serving (25.6% by wt.)

Corporate Info: World Market (a.k.a. Cost Plus World Market) is an American retailer whose large stores sell furniture, housewares, and packaged food and alcohol with a global-imported vibe. For example, it's the only place in Seattle where I've come across Australia's Bundaberg Ginger Beer. World Market carries a particularly wide variety of candies, including store-brand chocolate bars. I've reviewed a couple of flavored bars; what about their plain dark chocolate?

Appearance: Super-dark, with a grey-purple tint rather than red or orange.

Smell: Chocolatey, of the dried-fruit variety. No edges.

Taste: On first bite, I thought “wow, this is really dark for 72%,” and then the sweet came along behind it. I think it's because there really aren't any edges—not really tannic (astringent, mouth-drying), not at all sour, just nothing to balance the sugar even though I don't think it's that sweet. It's kind of like dates, or prunes without the tartness, some simply sweet fruit that's been dried and concentrated. That said, I think there's nuance to what is there, if you're not into sour and don't like bitter chocolate. Think dried persimmons: I've tried them and thought they were dully sweet, but others obviously get more out of that flavor. The chocolate's texture is very slightly waxy, and the aftertaste is caramelized and sweetish.

Conclusion: World Market Dark Chocolate 72% Cacao is sweet, dark, and not much else, though what is there is nuanced. Not for me.

República del Cacao° Provincia Manabi 75%

1.76oz (50g) bar

Ingredients: Cacao liquor, sugar, cacao butter, soy lecithin

7g sugar/25g serving (28% by wt.)

Corporate Info: Most of the search results I'm finding are commercial or other reviews like mine, so I'll have to rely on República del Cacao's convoluted website. Since it's confusing I'm going to keep it short, and if you really want to learn more, feel free to peruse the site yourself. In brief, República del Cacao is a young company focusing on Ecuadorian cacao, which it claims to be particularly floral and fruity. The website seems to indicate that República del Cacao produces only three products, one from each of three provinces.

Today's bar is the one from Manabi Province. The site offers no photo of the packaging or description of the ingredients, instead providing a “flavor description map,” which gives you a pretty good idea of República del Cacao's approach to its chocolate (or at least its marketing). My questions are pretty obvious, then: Is this chocolate extra floral and fruity, and does the flavor map reflect my experience?

Appearance: A blocky little bar in a pleasant, warm brown with a hint of orange and a very slight gloss.

Smell: Fresh, beany, juicy.

Taste: Texture has some chew, in this case a little chalky, resisting the teeth and breaking down into pieces, then very thick and mouth-coating. Flavor-wise, I totally get floral—not in any weird way, just light and fragrant. I don't taste as much fruit, unless we're talking something tropical, the sort with a perfumey taste. Sweet enough, and with very little sour or bitter taste, and a slightly bitter aftertaste. Also, with the first piece I started chewing, I got a hint of tobacco.

Let's check out the flavor map, which I'm simplifying here:

• High: “Chocolate” and “chocolate aroma.” These probably correspond to what I thought of as “beany.” 
• Medium: Sweetness and “chocolate linger.” Sure. 
• Low: Bitter, fluidness, floral, smoothness, floral linger, fruity, acidity, and “cooling.” While I did consider this fairly floral, otherwise these jibe with my impressions of both flavor and texture. 
• Very low: Lingering flavors in general (including bitter, which I did taste a little) as well as “roasted” and “astringency.”

Actually, this flavor map does mostly describe my experience in eating the Manabi Province bar, which is kind of a fun exercise. I'm not sure I love the bar itself, but it certainly isn't bad; this is one of those personal preference things.

Conclusion: República del Cacao° Provincia Manabi 75% is beany and, to my mind, floral, but the real fun is seeing to what extent my experience eating it compares to the company's description. I guess the website is helpful after all!

Lake Champlain Five Star Chocolate Bar Fruit & Nut

 

1.9oz (53g) bar

Ingredients: Sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, milk powder, milk fat, soybean lecithin, vanilla, hazelnut paste, pecans, raisins, dried cherries

Corporate Info: I rather like Lake Champlain because it makes my favorite cocoa powder (so far), and because the passionate, creative mind (at least at that time) behind the Five Star Bars is profiled in Candyfreak, a book about a few remaining small businesses in the large-corporation-dominated chocolate world. I'm not sure there's a lot to say about the company otherwise: It's based in Vermont and about 30 years old...not organic or fair trade or whatnot, but if you're in the U.S. you can buy them and support a relatively small American company. (Bonus: Combine a factory tour with a trip to the nearby Ben and Jerry's factory and seriously, that's a good time right there.)

[Update/correction 4/2/12] Lake Champlain does produce a few organic items and is a member of the World Cocoa Foundation, which claims to be working toward various positive aims (focusing on child labor and so on). However, as the WCF includes many of the world's largest chocolate manufacturers, visions of happy workers sustainably producing cheap chocolate to fulfill the world's demand may be a bit of wishful thinking, at least for the time being.

Appearance: Lake Champlain's Five Star bars are all stubby, chunky, and unassuming. This one is mildly reddish-brown and just a little glossy. A cross-section looks like ganache mixed with whitish pecans and not a lot of fruit.

Smell: Sweet dried fruit and nuts, though that might be cheating with this bar. Very pleasant, which is to say nothing pops out.

Taste: The texture in these bars is fatty-creamy, sort of like a less extreme version of a Lindor Truffle (but with actual cocoa butter instead of palm and coconut oils), plus inclusions: Crunchy, low-flavor nuts, dried fruits contributing low-impact complexity and intermittent chew, and a good amount of fatty filling. Since there's hazelnut paste, they're trying for additional flavor and creaminess rather than just nut pieces, and I am getting some minor hints of Nutella that probably add to the fruit/nut vibe. The chocolate feels like an afterthought, but it's really not, because it's well-matched in sweet-tart profile, just not particularly intense.

Conclusion: Lake Champlain Five Star Chocolate Bar Fruit & Nut is an easy, not-so-strong hit of dried fruits, nuts, fat, and pleasant chocolate.

Michel Cluizel Los Anconés (organic; 67% cacao)

70g (2.46oz) bar

Ingredients: Organic cocoa, o. cane sugar, o. cocoa butter, o. Bourbon vanilla pod

13g sugar/40g serving (32.5% by wt.)

Today's 67% cacao bar comes from Michel Cluizel's line of chocolate from individual plantations, in this case Los Anconés on the Carribean island of Hispaniola (the island shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti). I can't remember when I bought this bar, but unlike the one pictured on the website, mine contains only organic ingredients. I would guess that a current Los Anconés bar would taste similar, though I'm not certain. The box explains that the chocolate has been “lengthily worked,” which I imagine means a super-creamy texture.

Corporate Info: (copied from 5/19/11) 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: This bar has a totally different imprint than the last Cluizel product I reviewed, but it's still beautifully and sharply molded. The chocolate is attractive too: smooth, slightly glossy, slightly reddish brown.

Smell: Nice, rounded dried fruit. Interesting but not pungent or intense, with nothing standing out.

Taste: Texture is crunchy slowly melting into super smooth; I buy that “lengthily worked” claim. Flavor is very friendly: Not too sweet, not at all sour, very little bitterness or tannins. Not obviously fruity, but there is that touch of pleasant, caramelized brightness, maybe like golden raisins. The box says “liquorice wood, then red berries and green olives.” I can see the licorice—but yes, the straight root, like you might have in tea, just that super-subtle sweetness. If you're not looking for it, you won't taste it at all. Red berries? Okay, sure, but this isn't a fresh, fruity tasting chocolate, so that's also subtle. I'm not getting green olives.

Conclusion: Michel Cluizel Los Anconés is super smooth, subtle, pleasant, and satisfying.

Chocolove Ginger Crystallized in Dark Chocolate 65% Cocoa Content

3.2oz (90g) bar
Ingredients: Cocoa liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla, crystallized ginger 11g sugar/30g bar (36.7% by wt.) 

Today's bar is Chocolove's take on the fairly popular combo of candied ginger and chocolate. Now that I think about it, ginger and chocolate actually sounds like it wouldn't work at all, but the sweet-spicy ginger candy often provides a nice contrast with creamy, rich chocolate. We'll see how well Chocolove does with the combo. 

Corporate Info: (Copied from 10/15/11) 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: Very dark brown with a dark greyish cast and not lot of warmth (red, orange or yellow). Mine is a little beaten up and dusty, but with the dust rubbed away it's much glossier.
 

Smell: Not ginger, exactly, but spicy, with a sweetness that has some perfume, like honey or pineapple. No big chocolate smell, but a little characteristic beaniness. This isn't a very strong-smelling bar.
 

Taste: Definitely sweet, with the flavor of candied ginger that has had all the harshness taken out and not a lot of depth to the chocolate, which mostly provides a hard, then crumbly, then creamy texture. Small but tangible pieces of ginger are well distributed and soft in a crumbly, sugary way, which I think is a good choice: The ginger's texture melds well with the experience of eating this particular chocolate while still standing out enough for contrast.
 

Conclusion: Chocolove Ginger Crystallized in Dark Chocolate 65% Cocoa Content is sweet, gingery, and harshness-free. Its lack of depth won't win it any dark chocolate awards, but it's an easy eating candy with a lower sugar content than you might expect.