With the temperature here in London hitting 32°C, it’s possibly not the best time to be reviewing chocolate. But I had this sat on my desk, and I wanted to try it, so I had no other choice but to review it too.
I’m a bit of a fan of a good quality coffee flavoured chocolate, but I know from experience that it’s something that’s very easy to get wrong.
This 100g bar is an organic 70% dark chocolate, and as you can see, it’s divided into 30 small chunks…
When you pop a chunk into your mouth, you immediately realise why. The coffee flavour is intense. Really intense. If the chunks were any bigger, it would be too much, but as it is, each little chunk is enough to give you a short, sharp coffee hit.
The flavour is so strong that it’s difficult to taste the actual chocolate. But the texture is smooth (no grainy bits here!), and on a hot day like today, it melts away quickly on the tongue. There is a slight fruitiness at the end, but there’s really not much sweetness. I found it just a little too strong for my tastes, but even so I did find myself eating chunk after chunk without even realising I was doing it. It’s certainly a nice little pick-me-up for an afternoon in a warm office.
If you’re not a coffee fan, then you’re definitely not going to like this – it’s a basically a strong cup of black coffee in solid form. If that’s how you take you’re coffee, then I’d definitely recommend giving it a go. It was a little too strong for my tastes, but it’s clearly made with some quality ingredients.
I was a little late in discovering the existence of Necco Wafers, but once I did, I found them quite the intriguing candy, with all their old-fashioned style. It turns out that Necco (New England Confectionery company) has been making candy wafers since 1847. The Necco Wafers brand came around in 1912. Necco is more known for the Sweethearts that show up for Valentine’s Day, but I prefer the wafers by far, even if they’re basically the same thing in a different shape. Of course, it’s only the rolls of solid chocolate wafers, leaving out wintergreen and lime and the rest, that are of interest here.
In these days of bright and shiny wrappers, it’s nice to take a break with the simple wax paper Necco uses. The dusty (with what white powder I really don’t know), quarter-sized wafers that make sounds like poker chips when banged together also feel like remnants of a bygone era. And their taste. It reminds me of a chocolate malt from a vintage soda fountain. Yes, that does mean that the chocolate taste is more artificial than not, but can we really expect more? Chocolate is the third ingredient, coming after sugar and corn syrup, which must make up the bulk.
From “wafer“, you’d expect something soft and airy. But, no, these are hard candies with a texture like chalk. That makes them a bit harsh for your teeth to tear into. Which isn’t something I mind since my favorite thing is to wait as they dissolve in my mouth, trying to be delicate enough to keep them from breaking as they get thinner and thinner.
And that’s all there is to them. Very simple, even for a candy, but that’s why they stay such a simply endearing sweet.
Note: You can read Deanna’s take on Rausch’s El Cuador and Puerto Cabello bars here.
Having already tasted, enjoyed and reviewed the first four lighter blocks of the Rausch Plantagen variety (cocoa solids ranging from 35% Noumean to 47% Costa Rica), it is now time to try the darker four.
These beauties include the 60% ‘Amacado’ from Peru, the 70% ‘El Cuador’ from Ecuador, a 75% from Tobago and a serious 80% ‘Tembadoro’ from Trinidad.
Having just attended an informative and enjoyable Chocolate Appreciation class run by Kirsten Tibbals I decided to try the darkest first. She advises that trying the milder ones mean that the palate gets loaded with sugar and is overwhelmed, making it difficult to taste any other tones in the chocolate. As you can see, there is a noticeable difference in colour, with 80% at the top and 60% at the bottom.
Rightio. The 80% Tembadora from Trinidad in the Caribbean. The cocoa from this area is grown in small plantations, but Rausch are working with the University of the West Indies to continue their work on the world’s largest cocoa genetic database. Nerdy but important. This is a really laid-back dark chocolate without the usual saliva-sucking bitterness that can tend to assail the first taste. Instead, it gives hints of dark, earthy soil, coffee and fine, dusty cocoa. It is dense in texture and slow to melt but a very mild introduction to a chocolate that being 80% is in serious Dark Side territory.
Tobago 75% is a near geographic neighbour of Trinidad, yet the flavours are quite different. Whilst it too is fairly mild for something so dark, it is much drier on the palate – I needed a drink after just one segment, and there was nowhere near the complexity of flavours that Tembadora has. Whilst there is no bitterness, but the overall effect is a bit too gluggy and heavy.
El Cuador 70% is very, very nice. There are a lot of 70% chocolates out there, and this one can stand proudly alongside the best of them. It has a sweet, smoky flavour with hints of wood, dried grasses and tobacco. Can you tell I’ve done a tasting course?
The 60% Amacado is named after the region in Peru that has with nearly 1,000 families growing the cocoa as part of a cooperative. This one tastes remarkably stronger than 60% and that’s meant in a good way – clearly the cocoa is top quality. Of all four, this is the one that melts most easily, allowing some sweetness to emerge and then a whisper of coffee. This is my favourite. Excellent cocoa taste with a generous inclusion of cocoa butter to allow the flavours to come through with bells on.
Laurie Moroco’s company, Haute Choklet, started in the home for eight years before it was made into an official company a year ago. “Haute” meaning “high” for “fashionably elegant or high-class”. And while it still has a homemade feel, the company does go for some casually classy standards.
Chocolate-covered pretzels are their biggest item, but they also throw in some other things, like fortune cookies. The merry packaging of the one Laurie sent me is pretty standard, as they’re designed with occasions in mind. Birthdays, baby showers, etc. In this particular case, I do love all the pink frills against the simple silver Chinese take-out box. Nestled inside on pink paper shreds was a caramel-coated, chocolate-dipped fortune cookie, protected in its own wrappings. You do get that birthday-sense undoing so many curled ribbons.
The regular-sized cookie is tempting with a very thick coating of caramel, chocolate, chocolate chips, and sprinkles. It doesn’t just look like lots of chocolate, either; it’s a very dominant part of the taste. There’s just the right bit of caramel to set off the crunch of the lightly sweet cookie. My fortune was “success is at your fingertips – open your eyes.” Maybe if they added something about chocolate in there, too… “chocolate is at your fingertips”… or maybe not.
It seems like the fortune cookies usually come in pairs, which makes sense: one isn’t quite enough. Given the prices, you’ll want to keep them for their intended purpose as party favors or gifts instead of just getting them as sweets for yourself. But they suit that purpose well enough.
