Chocolate Amatller 70% Cacao Origen Ecuador

About: Amatller is a Catalonian chocolate made in Barcelona since 1797. On their web site you'll find the type of content that chocolate lovers care about, for example,  "how to store chocolate."I want to like them for their heritage, their turn-of-the-last-century style, and because the Spanish are chocolate underdogs. But perhaps, at the end of the day, there's a reason for their underdogness.


Flavor: Pretty good. The chocolate has a long flavor profile that comes in quickly and lasts a satisfyingly long time. It's much better after the initial bite, with deep earthy flavors that last and last.


Texture: The texture is a bit on the brittle and waxy side. Just a bit. When eating this chocolate, after the initial crunch, which is a tad crunchy, you'll get a sort of ball of chocolate that wants to stick together like peanut butter. Could be creamier.

My rating: Solid 8.0. 

Here,  10 means 'mind shockingly good' and 1 means 'would not bother'.


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Godiva Chocolatier Extra Dark Santo Domingo Chocolate 85% Cacao

 
























About: I don't like Godiva chocolate. It's always been my impression that they were trying to leverage their Belgian-ness into market success with sub-par chocolate. The company owns many shops and a pretty massive distribution network that tries to look high-end. They seem to also be trying to (use law suits to) corner the market on the use of the Godiva name, which is based on a legend involving taxation, a young woman, a horse, and nudity. Godiva chocolates should probably should just say neigh and walk away from that potential fiasco.

I had hopes that perhaps this high-cocoa content chocolate would be better than my random encounters with Godiva boxed chocolates I've been offered while visiting aged relatives who thought they were getting the good stuff. But no.


Flavor: The flavor is acidic and sour. The bar is the right level of sweetness for my taste, but .. did I say sour? The aftertaste is acerbic, too. There isn't much of a flavor profile here, and while it's okay - I wouldn't spit it out, I also wouldn't bother with it again.You can wait a long time for the flavor to change from "waxy" to "still waxy" to "oh.. yeah.. chocolate" to "oh sour"...

Texture: Well, it's not crunchy brittle, but it's not particularly anything. Sort of middle of the road okay.

My rating: 5.0,  on the scale of 1-10, where 10 means 'mind shockingly good' and 1 means 'would not bother'. The texture is auspicious, and the flavor is good, but not stellar.




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Vanini Dark Chocolate 86% Cocoa

About: Vanini is a family-owned Italian chocolate that is sourced from Peru. They have modern factories, with pictures on their web site. As someone that believe modern technology can make everything better than old, hand-made approaches, I approve. They manufacture a bunch of different dark chocolates, but this is the deepest and darkest. Does their Peruvian cocoa taste different? mmmm.. not so sure.



Flavor: Their cocoa tastes well roasted, but not overly burned. The level of sweetness is pleasant. The eating experience starts with sweetness, then the cocoa flavor comes in, followed by an acidic phase and long residual notes. And while that all sounds good, the flavor is not all that varied. I've had 'broader' experiences, if that makes sense.

Texture: Oooh... for an 86% bar, this is nice and creamy. Nice job.

My rating: 8.0,  on the scale of 1-10, where 10 means 'mind shockingly good' and 1 means 'would not bother'. The texture is auspicious, and the flavor is good, but not stellar.




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Côte d'Or 70% Noir Intense Bengial Dark Chocolate Confection

About: Everybody talks about it. Everybody. "Belgian Chocolate." It's slightly less exciting to think of this as chocolate owned by $30B Mondelez International corporation and formerly Kraft General Foods. Some of the chocolate is now manufactured in Poland. Still, this is a popular brand in Belgium, and it does have the familiar origin story: "Guy likes chocolate; guy starts business making chocolate; guy succeeds and sells company to conglomerate." The violin music swells. Sniff.

"Côte d'Or" was a reference to Ghana, where the chocolate was originally sourced. Now it comes from South America. Deepest, darkest Africa seems more mysterious than South America, but I don't know that the chocolate is better.


Flavor: Burned. Fortunately, it's not overly sweet for a 70% bar, so that's pleasant. And it's definitely a full flavored chocolate, but it's acidic and well... well roasted... tasting.  The flavor profile is full, so that you experience a nice evolutionof burned, ooh-not that burned, earthy, acidic. None of these are nice words, but overall the flavor is good, and I'd have this again for sure.

Texture: Solidly okay. Not super creamy, where you might get excited, but not crunchy and brittle where you'd run for safety.

My rating: 8.0,  on the scale of 1-10, where 10 means 'mind shockingly good' and 1 means 'would not bother'. Would eat again happily.




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Dagoba 59% Caco Organic Chocolate: Laveder Blueberry

About: Dagoba Chocolate is marketed, like so many other brands, as a "guy makes chocolate and gets passionate about it and starts a business and baboom!" I'm wiping a joyful tear just now as I write about it, but it's a good story and one that makes me want to buy stuff from them. The fact that they sell cocoa powder  and feature recipes on their web site and generally seem like chocolate enthusiasts is a marketing plus. 


Flavor: Well... it's 59%, so it's run sweet. But there are textures here from the blueberries, and a nice full flavor profile and a pleasant experience. I think I'd rather go for something darker, but I can't complain.

Texture: It's okay. I like creamy chocolates, and this is on the just-ever-so-slightly brittle side.

My rating: 7.5  on the scale of 1-10, where 10 means 'mind shockingly good' and 1 means 'would not bother'.




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Albert Heijn Biologische Extra Pure Chocolade 71% cacao

About: This is the Dutch Albert Heijn cheap store brand chocolate, which I expected to be sort of mediocre but which turned out to actually unexpectedly good. On eating, any low expectations are dispelled. This is good stuff. 


Flavor: Full flavored chocolate that's really pleasing.


Texture: Heavenly smooth. No really. This is creamy and delicious and so smooth. I suspect this chocolate has a lot of cocoa butter and maybe less cocoa powder. Just a guess. Who cares. I really enjoyed it.

My rating: Solid 9.  

Here,  10 means 'mind shockingly good' and 1 means 'would not bother'.


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Claudio Corallo 75% Chocolate

About: Claudio Corallo claims to be the first chocolate manufacturer that owned their own cocoa source. That's marketing. There's a lot of marketing here, going down to the reasons they aren't fair trade certified and explaining their packaging (they're probably the only manufacturer of chocolate that staples their name to the package), etc.The chocolate is manufactured under primitive conditions on Principe Island off the coast of Africa. Some people associate simple manufacturing methods with the ye olde days when all was good. I tend to associate them with ye sicke days when disease was rampant. There's nothing wrong with wine made in stainless steel, and there's nothing wrong with chocolate made with modern machinery. But that doesn't mean this chocolate isn't well made.


Flavor: Very full flavored. Eat this next to other bars and you'll see that it's definitely different. If you open the package and smell, you'll get a strong whiff of earthy, full, rich flavor. If you've eaten papaya and know how its aroma borders on the repellent, you get the picture here. A friend who tried this gagged and yelled a distinctly diminishing deprecation.


Texture: Perfectly reasonable.

My rating: I don't know how to rate this chocolate. If you like something really full flavored, this is a 9.5. If you're grossed out by something that is just too earthy, you might hate this chocolate.

Here,  10 means 'mind shockingly good' and 1 means 'would not bother'.


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