This was a present from a Korean friend who brought it back after a trip home. Lotte is a company with bases in both South Korea and Japan, and seems to be the Nestlé of that region.
It’s a combination of milk chocolate and puffed rice, and the most remarkable thing about this bar was how thin it was. I don’t think I’ve seen a bar this skinny in a very long time, and I couldn’t help wondering if they had to source tiny rice to puff especially for this chocolate.
Unfortunately the chocolate itself was very average. It didn’t have any great flavour to it at all, but I had to bear in mind that it had travelled an awfully long way!
I think it’s safe to say that you won’t see my eyes light up the next time I see a Crunky bar. It was unremarkable, run-of-the-mill stuff, and there’s far too much fantastic chocolate being made out there for me to ever want to be bothering with stuff like this.
Finally I get around to World Market’s chocolates, starting with this basic dark bar. It has the same packaging as their other products, imitating a box wrapped up for shipping.
On the other side of the paper and foil, the bar kind of looks like a sheet of uncut Lego blocks, but the strong smell with the slightest touch of spice is encouraging. They call it “a full roasted, intense dark chocolate flavor with the slightest hint of sweetness and earth tones.” When I started tasting it, I thought maybe you could trade “earth” for “dirt” tones, but I realized in the same instant that most people don’t like to associate dirt flavors with the things they eat.
But I’m not saying anything negative; I’m just thinking of a coolness inside warmth and an almost frothy essence. There’s more than a hint of sweetness, though, even if that isn’t the biggest focus. Nice melting pace and a very fine consistency that I love.
It really isn’t my favorite, though certainly enjoyable. But everything about it tells me it’s perfectly suited for the “average person’s major chocolate fix.” My guinea pigs, er, friends, agreed that it’s great for their personal chocolate stashes. For those who get a little too frightened by other dark chocolates, but still want something a bit special.
After trying Woolworths almond milk chocolate, my hopes were hovering at around pond slime level when their Dark Chocolate block was ready for reviewing. As with the other block, the presentation leaves a lot to be desired. If they are aiming at the bargain basement crowd then it’s a winner, but if they want discerning buyers to be attracted to their chocolate, this wrapper scores an F.
Despite my pompous dismissal of the packaging, there was a pleasant, sweet and dark aroma when the plastic wrapper was opened. The rectangular chunks of chocolate are rather large and deep and very, very difficult to snap.
Leaving it out to soften slightly helped matters a bit and gave me a chance to peruse the ingredients. Sugar first, so there won’t be a huge cocoa solids content (47%, which is a bit optimistic to call it dark chocolate in my opinion); cocoa butter, butter oil milk, soy lecithin —— hang on a second – Butter milk oil? What the blown gasket was that? If nothing else, it explains why a mere 4 piece serving of this chocolate will reward the eater with one-quarter their daily allowance of saturated fat.
And the taste? Awful. Bloody awful. This was like cooking chocolate. Just cheap, nasty, compound-oily, sharp-tanged and gluggy in the mouth. Yuck. No wonder it’s the supermarket’s own label and the manufacturer won’t reveal themselves because This. Is. Just. Not. Good. Enough. No, not even for cheapskate bargain hunters who hate their friends. What’s worse is that, over three days, I persisted in eating it to see if it improved or to check that I wasn’t being unnecessarily snobby or too harsh. Instead, I was rewarded with a headache for my efforts.
To describe this box of poo as ‘deliciously full bodied….pure temptation” with “a wonderfully delicate texture and a luxuriously rich flavour” is to tell big porky pies. I’d rather eat mud. Or carob! Avoid like the plague. Or someone suffering from the plague holding a block of this in their infested hands.
From the Whittard’s chain, makers of disappointingly sugary drinking chocolate, comes an alternative to the Yogi Tea chocolate chai I came across last year. The bag is full of cocoa shells, cinammon, cloves, cardamom pods and peppercorns, to name but a few of the ingredients. I didn’t really get to see the contents of my Yogi Teabag, but this looked great on a plate.
For obvious reasons this tea requires a little more brewing time than your average cuppa. Whittards recommend serving this ‘Indian style’ with hot milk and lots of sugar. Obviously the hot milk puts a bit of temperature bag into the tea.
In the bag this tea promised warm, spicy cocoa and cinnamon notes. In the cup the peppercorns and cardamoms really come to life, spicing things up nicely. The natural sweetness of milk and a good dollop of sugar soften off the spices, combining well with the cocoa.
It’s a sweet, hot blend, well suited to the cold winter months, and definitely something worth trying if you fancy something a bit different. It’s also well suited to those who favour a low-caffeine life. Highly recommended.
