Rococo Moroccan Mint

Here’s a little something I liberated from the Rococo stand at the Speciality and Fine Food Fair. It’s a 65% organic dark chocolate bar with organic mint, and comes in a brightly coloured wrapper, the design of which is inspired by Moorish tiles.

The chocolate is from the “Grococo” cocoa farm which Rococo jointly owns with the Grenada Chocolate Company, and has a beautiful, glossy, reddish finish to it.

What makes this bar a little different from other mint chocolates is that it has tiny pieces of mint leaves embedded in the chocolate, in addition to peppermint oil. The result is a very natural, fresh mint flavour that’s never overpowering and works really well with the dark chocolate.

Mint flavoured chocolate often conjours up images of cheap after dinner mints with all kinds of unnatural flavours, but this tastes much more… real.

One thing that isn’t so great is the texture. Those tiny pieces of mint may give a great flavour, but when the chocolate has melted away, you’re left with a small pile of ‘bits’ in your mouth that isn’t the nicest sensation ever. They do slowly release more mintyness as the chocolate melts, I really can’t decide whether that fresh flavour is worth the price of the unusual texture.

Having said that, I’d still recommend lovers of mint chocolate give it a go. It’s one of those bars that’s difficult to put down once you start eating, and if you can live with the ‘bits’, you’ll love it.

Zotter Schönberger Red

Something else from our favourite Austrian chocolate maker, and this time it’s a boozy little bar containing Schönberger red wine. In keeping with Zotter’s organic / fair trade ingredients policy, the red wine is also organic. There are also a few raisins in there to add texture, and a little grappa – presumably to beef up the alcoholic element.

The form is standard Zotter. The outside of the bar is Zotter’s 60% fine bitter chocolate, which conceals a rich, dark truffle interior. On the nose this bar immediately delivers a boozy aroma, with the raisins adding depth and a lighter, fruity element. In many ways it’s almost like sniffing a rum & raisin bar, albeit a more refined version.

The bittersweet dark chocolate shell is smooth and well flavoured, but as soon as your tongue finds the filling, it’s all about the fruity. boozy flavours. If you don’t like alcohol in your chocolate you definitely won’t like this bar. The rich, creamy filling is home to fragments of raisin, but it’s always the wine (and grappa) that dominates the initial taste. Having said that, once the filling melts, there’s a subtle sweetness that begins to spread out over your palate, and as the last of the filling melts away there’s just enough chocolate (and a few morsels of raisin) left to round off the whole taste experience with lovely cocoa flavours. Once your mouth is empty there are lovely hints of chocolate and alcohol remaining.

I’ve not eaten many alcoholic chocs recently, and this was definitely a good place to start. I’ve only tasted a handful of Zotter’s creations, and so far I’m more than happy with what I’ve had.

With luck Zotter chocolates will become more available in the UK over time, but in the meantime, if you see something from this range (or the Mitzi Blue brand) I’d strongly suggest bagging it (and telling no-one).

Sugarless Gourmet Dark Chocolate

After a hard day crawling over and under the house doing a spot of new data wiring – it was time for a reward. The choices on a nice spring day came down to a cold beer, or a cup of tea and some chocolate. Guess which choice I made!

I’ve had the Sugarless Gourmet Dark Chocolate (Swiss Premium, Gluten Free, Dairy Free) in the stash for a while, waiting for a time when I’ve been feeling brave enough to take it on. I’m scared of heights, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do. So after a couple of hours today perched on the roof, dragging a cable around and overcoming my fears, it seemed a reasonable thing to overcome another much smaller one – and take on the chocolate in the blue package.

There is something about the packaging of this product: I just don’t like it. The blue / purple colour makes the product look cheap and nasty; first impressions are something we all have, and we all need to try and push those first impressions aside to make a better judgement. Don’t judge a book by its cover / don’t judge a chocolate by its packaging.

So, feeling brave, I ploughed on. Inside the cardboard outer package is a folded, sealed paper package. And inside that is a plastic package. And inside that is some chocolate. Having finally reached my goal, I found that on opening the package there was no aroma to speak of. As I write this, I’ve picked the pack up for a deep sniff, and there still isn’t anything much to smell. It’s kind of weird to have a chocolate with almost no aroma. Disconcerting.

On to the taste test. The texture is unusual, a few pieces don’t really melt like a normal chocolate, and there is no development of flavour. Well, there is some – it’s a little bit chocolaty. But for something that claims to be a Dark Gourmet Chocolate, I’d call this about a 20% chocolate. It has about 20% of the whoomph / flavour / aroma / yumminess that it should have. Perhaps it’s something to do with how its made, or being sugarless? But I’ve eaten a number of other sugarless chocolates before (most notably some of the Cocoa Farm offerings) and they have been packed with flavour and aroma. I’m also a little put off by the use of Maltitol as the sweetener, especially given the side effects. This is not a block to scarf down in a single sitting.

All in all, this is pretty disappointing. Oldest Son just tried some, and his one word summary is entirely correct: Bland. I should have had the cold beer instead.

Plush Petals

We’ve talked about Plush’s beautiful fair trade chocolates before, and bumped into them at the recent Speciality & Fine Food Fair recently. They promised to send us some “handbags” as soon as they were ready, and here they are.

There’s two varieties of chocolate here, both in similar cute, red, handbag style packaging inside each is a 70g bag of “petals” – basically chocolate discs with flower oils and freeze dried fruit.

First up, we have a 36% milk chocolate with freeze dried strawberry and geranium oil. As you can see, those pieces of strawberry embedded in the chocolate give the discs a bit of a haphazard look, which I quite like. They’re not designed to look perfect.

The chocolate is smooth and creamy, and the strawberries have a nice crunch to them. Leave them in your mouth for a few seconds, and that tangy, citrus yflavour builds rather nicely.

But the dominant flavour here is the geranium – tasting a little like rose, giving an overall flavour a little like Turkish delight. I guess it’s fitting that the flavour of the flower should be front and centre in a product called “petals”.

The white chocolate petals are made with freeze dried raspberry and rose oil and follow exactly the same format as the milk chocolate version. Except for being white. Obviously.

The flavour of the flower oil isn’t as evident here as it was with the milk chocolate petals – in fact, I could barely make it out at all. That may be deliberate, as the combination of sweet white chocolate and rose could end up a little sickly.

But thankfully, these aren’t too sweet. They weren’t really my thing as white chocolate doesn’t really do it for me, but they’re pleasant enough to nibble on. And the little flecks of pink showing through the white chocolate do make them look cute.

Being “handbags filled with petals”, these are obviously aimed at girls, and they’d probably make a great gift for a teenage girl in particular. They have the added bonus of being beautifully presented, and Fair Trade. Recommended.