A mixed bag of chocolates.

I have a whole bunch of stuff that I bought on that big chocolate shopping spree a while back, so I’m just going to post some of those today.

This first one is from Seattle Chocolates. Its their Meltdown Mint Truffle bar (milk chocolate). I actually bought this one by accident, because I generally don’t buy mint or flavored stuff because its not all chocolate. Just my preference. I was just pulling all the bars off the shelf in a frantic haze and grabbed this one by accident because I saw the Seattle Chocolates name and thought it was kind of novel.

Its actually a pretty tasty bar, in a minty kind of way. Not very strong mint, maybe like one of those “After Eight Dinner Mints”, not like a Peppermint Patty. If you like chocolate mint, this is a good one to try.

Their website says that the beans are actually processed in Germany (from West African beans, which means Ivory Coast or Ghana most likely) and then the chocolate is shipped to Seattle for forming and blending. And if you look at their About Us page, you see a nice picture of some chocolates coming through their coater.

These next two both come from Chocovic (their website was down when I tried to look at it). I had heard of Chocovic some place before but can’t remember where.

What intrigued me about these two bars was that they had the same cocoa content, 71%, but one was made from Forestero beans from Ecuador and the other from Criollo from Venuzuela. Same company, same cocoa content, different beans. Had to try that!

What a difference too. The Forestero bar had a very woody taste. Almost like it was near a smokehouse or something. A very smooth, mellow, and even flavor, not so bitter. The Criollo bar was very “fruity”, kind of like how the Lindt 70% bar tastes, lots of overtones and the taste changes a bit as you eat it, with bitter and “fruity” fading in and out. What was odd was that the descriptions of the tastes of each on the back of the bars, seemed to fit the other bar. I prefer the Criollo bar but you might want to try both.

Neat things about this chocolate include the “best before” date label on the back, which is a nice thing so you don’t buy an old bar. It also gives the batch number and the year of the cocoa crop. Nice touch. One other thing is that it also says on the back “For exclusive sale in patisserie shops and speciality shops”. I guess they want to make sure someone isn’t selling them to Kroger or 7-11. :D

These next two are from the giant in the fine chocolate industry, Valrhona. I do like Valrhona alot and would prefer their couverture over others just because it tempers so much more easily. Must be the cocoa butter. these two bars are part of their “Domain” chocolates. These are chocolates made from beans from a particular plantation.

This is a mix of marketing but also there is alot to be said for concentrating the chocolate flavors rather than blending. The soil and location play such a huge role in the taste, that making chocolate from one specific location, you are bound to get unique flavors.

The Gran couva comes from a plantation in Trinidad and uses, as you might guess, Trintario beans. You may recall that Trinitarios are a hybrid of Forestero and Criollo, and have good disease resistance as well as good flavor. The batches or “vintages” of chocolate from these areas are set up kind of like wines. And the Valrhona web site even has a note: “There is only a limited quantity of each vintage”.

I think this bar was Ok. I wasn’t overly thrilled with it, but it wasn’t bad. The flavor was a little flat, but for people who like a milder chocolate, this might be the bar for them. Its certainly worth trying one as part of the whole group to experience the different flavors.

Teh Ampamakia bar is from the Millot (?) plantation in Madagascar. This had a really unique flavor to it. Very fruity, almost spicy. Wow! And if you look at the bar, the color is a light brown. I was expecting something almost like a semi-sweet or milk. It tastes so dark. Just a delight! If you like dark chocolate, this is the bar for you.

I tried to find more about it on Valrhona’s website but they don’t have it listed. The only thing that made me wonder about the particular bars that I bought was it said “R?colte 2003″ on the front of the label, which made me think they were from the 2003 vintage. Um, who is selling the old chocolate?

This last bar I bought at Meijer. It was in the Natural Foods section, which is placed in the “International” aisle, along with “Southern” food. :D This chocolate is made by The Endangered Species Chocolate Co.

The bar is pretty good, especially for an organic bar. The beans comes from Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, and are organically grown. The big point about it though is that the different bars have different animals and 10% of profits is donated to help endangered species. They have a good website and the guy in charge, Jon Stocking, spells his name the correct way too. A good organic bar (they do have other flavors as well,but ofcourse I picked the dark chocolate), and you get to help endangered animals too.

Ok, that’s it for this week. Next week I want to get out a good recipe in for raspberry truffles “trees”. Its a wierd recipe I created by accident (as all good recipes come from accidents), but its a big secret so don’t tell anyone. Its time for lunch now but, oddly enough, I’m not very hungry. ;)

This entry was posted on Friday, February 25th, 2005 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Chocolate Friday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.