Ambriel Dark Quinoa

Despite having come across some bars of Ambriel Chocolate before, they aren’t the best known of companies. And their generic packaging doesn’t give much in the way of clues either. The chocolate in made in Switzerland and is organic, fair trade and all the other kind of things that make it a regular fixture in all my local health food stores. But that’s about it. Nevertheless, I found it hard to resist their Dark Quinoa bar just because it was my first sighting of quinoa and chocolate together in a bar.

The quinoa is actually puffed into little crisps which provide a lovely texture but pretty much no flavour to the bar – it also looks rather impressive too with its endlessly bumpy back. A bit of digging around on the Canadian distributor’s website revealed that the beans are from Bolivia and the Dominican Republic and the cane sugar is from the Philippines, and that translates into a rather earthy tasting chocolate which isn’t too sweet considering it is only 61%. But it doesn’t have much in the way of depth – it is almost like the chocolate simply exists as a vehicle for the quinoa because without it, it would be a very dull bar. As it is, it is upscale version of a Nestlé Crunch bar and not much more.

Did that stop me from eating the whole thing? Well, no it didn’t and thanks for asking. And would I pick it up again? Probably not – the novelty of the quinoa wears off by the midway point and then there’s just the unmemorable chocolate left to deal with.

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