Rococo Dark Chocolate Floral Bee Bars

These little 20g bars were part of my haul from the Rococo stand at the Southbank Chocolate Festival last month. Rococo do a range of these little ‘Bee Bars’ in both milk and dark chocolate varieties, but I thought I’d start with these dark chocolates flavoured with rose and jasmine essential oils. There is also a violet bar in the in this range, but I wasn’t able to get hold of one of those. Maybe next time.

The packaging is, as you would expect from Rococo, very pretty, with flower designs printed on thick, rough paper. The inside of the wrapper has feintly printed rococo designs, as well as more detailed information on the chocolate itself. Oh – and a voucher. Collect 8 of them and they’ll send you a free bar!

I thought it would be particularly interesting to compare these two bars for the simple reason that rose is one of my favourite chocolate flavourings, while jasmine is one of my least favourite. I wanted to know if the rose would live up to my high expectations, and if the jasmine could finally change my mind.

Both chocolates are 65% cocoa solids and have a nice, minimal ingredients list. The rose bar is flavoured with natural rose essence and natural vanilla, so as you’d expect, the taste is evocative of Turkish Delight. The flavours are soft and subtle, never overpowering the chocolate. The chocolate being relatively sweet itself makes this the kind of chocolate that it’s all to easy to lose yourself in.

Now the jasmine. This has always been something that has ben a little too flowery for my tastes and often ends up reminding me of scented soap. The Rococo bar is made with jasmine tea as well as essential oil, so the most noticeable difference between this and the rose bar is that it has bits in it.

The aroma is nice and subtle, and the flavour starts in a similar way, with nice honey-like notes complementing the chocolate. But as the chocolate melts, I’m left with the unescapable fact that I just don’t like jasmine. It’s much more subtle than Matcha Chocolat’s Jasmine Tea, but it’s still not for me. I’m quite sure that this is just down to my own personal tastes though. This is a well made, quality bar of chocolate.

I’m really looking forward to trying the violet bar, and the beauty of these smaller format bee bars is that you can just pick up a selection and decide what you like before moving on to the bigger bars. Give them a go.

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