Vivani Crisper and Espresso Biscotti Bars

Posted by in Chocolate Reviews on August 25 2009 | Leave A Comment
Vivani-bars

Vivani is an Italian-sounding brand name for a German chocolate manufacturer and I found two bars lurking in my local corner store and was keen to try them.

Their very informative website has as an English-language film clip that states that Germans are second only to the Swiss for sheer volume of chocolate eaten, averaging 8.5 kilograms a year.* Vivani are justifiably proud that their products are made from organic ingredients and they pay local growers a fair price for their cocoa beans. This second fact might go down a bit better if there was the official ‘Fair Trade’ logo on their product.

However the means used to get their hands on them, Vivani manufacture their chocolate straight from the cocoa bean (most from Ghana, I think) and use more cocoa butter so that they don’t have to include lecithin – a thickener that is often genetically-modified and most certainly not organic. Neither wrapper has anything in English, so I’m assuming that ‘vollmich schokolade mit knackerbrot und zimt’ is something to with little caramel crisps in the ‘Crisper’ bar, and ‘mit knuspriger espresso-cremefullung’ is chocolate biscuit cream. There isn’t any nutritional information on the wrapper either, so I’m content to remain ignorant about fat and sugar content; especially seeing as I ate both bars in one sitting.

Whatever the translation, they are both rather scrummy. The milk chocolate has 32% cocoa solids and is a lovely, European-style creamy version that was all too quickly eaten and enjoyed with my second cup of coffee for the morning.

To be honest, the flavours for each bar aren’t vastly different; just pleasantly sweet and crunchy with a toffee-edge to the ‘Crisper’ but with bits in it barely visible to the naked eye. There was a noticeably more creamy filling for the espresso but only the faintest hint of coffee. If blindfolded, I’d struggle to identify the differences.

Whilst they’re nothing earth-shattering, they hold their own alongside the bigger, more mainstream chocolate bars, but I’ll certainly keep my eyes open for Vivani’s more gourmet-sounding blocks.

*I’d love to see us chocabloggers surveyed as we’d be way waaaay over that amount!

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Comments On This Post

  1. Mariangela

    Hi Kath!

    “Vollmilch Schokolade mit Knackerbrot und Zimt” means “whole milk chocolate with crispy bread and cinnamon”, and “mit knuspriger espresso-cremefullung” means “with crispy espresso filling cream”.
    So the first bar was supposed to have a cinnamon flavour too, but I guess it wasn’t very perceptible…
    Bye from Italy!

  2. Hannah

    I’ve seen these at a local cheese and wine store, but the one I picked up was the 100g bar of Dark Chocolate with Caramel Crisp. It was absolutely amazing. The closest to it I can think of is the Lindt Excellence Caramel, as they are both thin bars with little caramel bits, but this one was a deliciously rich dark chocolate that balanced the sweetness of the caramel. Really recommend it if you see it, Kath – sadly the one I bought was the last at the store!

  3. Rats! On your recommendation alone, Hannah, I’ll keep on looking….

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