- 1 day ago
Today on Epicurious, we’ve asked chocolate experts Nate Hodge, Maribel Lieberman, and Jessica Spaulding to give us their unfiltered, honest reviews of some prominent dark chocolate bars found on supermarket shelves. Which chocolate bars pack the most bang for your budget, and which should you avoid at all costs?
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00We've gathered three professional chocolatiers and chocolate makers
00:04to blind taste test every dark chocolate bar we could get our hands on
00:08to see which ones meet their standards.
00:14Ghirardelli. Intense dark. 86% cacao.
00:18First look is now well tempered. It should be a little shinier.
00:21It looks like it's wrapped really well because I'm seeing like pretty intact corners.
00:26Whoever made this knows what they're doing.
00:30Oh you heard that. So one of the main things I'm looking for in a quality chocolate right off the bat
00:34is the snap in the chocolate.
00:36That snap is going to mean that it was emulsified well, that the temper is strong.
00:41It indicates that there are no other fats besides cocoa butter.
00:43What the tempering does, it allows to be shiny, it allows to get hard.
00:48Tempering is the process of aligning the polymorphic crystals in both sugar and the cocoa butter.
00:54So if you see a chocolate bar that has streaks, it's either come out of temper or it wasn't
00:59tempered well. It should look pretty clear like this.
01:02What I'm looking for is the chocolate to be smooth because when it's grainy it's just
01:07dividing your palate. You don't really get to taste the quality of the chocolate.
01:12That texture will give you a bad mouth feel which will ruin the experience of the chocolate.
01:17Smoothness in a chocolate indicates that it's been well emulsified, that the temper is strong,
01:22that there hasn't been any defects in transit.
01:24I do want that strength of the cacao flavor, some level of bitterness, some level of sweetness,
01:31but I am looking for a balance. I don't want to eat a cleaning product.
01:36Every ingredient needs to have their own room.
01:42I'm just pushing this to the roof of my mouth, allowing my body temperature to really melt the
01:46chocolate down. Don't chew. Like, and I'm the greediest of the greedy.
01:50The texture of this chocolate is incredibly smooth. There are some acidic notes, there are some bitter
01:57notes. It has some acidity, it has bitterness. It's a combination of different beans. It's not
02:04really single origin. The single origin means that all of the beans in that chocolate come from one
02:09place. So you can pick up on all the notes there. It's melting kind of fast, which does tell me that
02:14there's maybe some fats in here that aren't cocoa butter. I'm not getting any crumbliness to it.
02:20And look, the warmth of my fingers has created this blooming effect. It looks like ash,
02:25but it's really that cocoa butter that melted. One of the things that's really, like, sort of sexy
02:30about chocolate is that it melted the human body temp, so it should take a little while for the
02:34chocolate to melt. This chocolate's pretty well-tempered. It's a pretty boring, middle-of-the-road
02:38chocolate. It's a good commercial. I'm not completely wowed by the cacao content.
02:44I feel it's 80 percent. Ghirardelli's 86 percent. 86!
02:49So the percentage here is an indication of how much cocoa is in the bar, and that could be a mix
02:55of cocoa beans and cocoa butter. And the extra 14 percent is most likely sugar. It could be other
03:00fillers, vegetable oils, milk powders, stuff like that. Chocolate has to be above 35 percent cocoa in
03:07order for it to be labeled as dark chocolate. There's no really regulation on what else that 45 or 30
03:14or 15 percent can be, and it's actually pretty mild for being 86 percent. But if you're looking for the
03:20health benefits of a super dark chocolate, this probably has them. Dark chocolate has a lot of
03:24health benefits, primary one being that it's high in polyphenols. It's the same type of antioxidants
03:30that are in berries. Milk fat in a dark. It's kind of crazy. That milk fat is what's making it melt
03:39faster. How is it an intense dark with the milk fat in it? Cadbury Royal Dark Chocolate.
03:48The snap was not as strong. A pretty dull snap. I'm concerned with the percentage of cacao in there. And then
03:55I can also see a little bit of grit here in the side. It might be an indication of a higher percentage
04:00of milk fat. It's a little waxy. Cocoa butter is more expensive than vegetable oil. Sometimes companies
04:06tend to add some vegetable oil to make it less expensive. Sometimes you might get a waxy texture.
04:14There's definitely a lot of milk powder in this. That's some milk chocolate. I don't even taste the
04:18flavor of the cacao. I don't think they listed the number of percentage. I can taste sugar. I feel like I just
04:24ate like a Jolly Rancher. Slight fruitiness. Like a raisiny kind of flavor. Anytime you get perceivable
04:29notes of fruit or nuts. That could be the fermentation of the cocoa beans. That could be the
04:34roasting of the cocoa beans. That could be a process called conching, which is used to
04:38aerate the chocolate and drive off acidity and volatile chemicals. My guess is some of all of those
04:45three things are at play here to give it like this round flavor. It is smooth. Cadbury. This is the
04:52Cadbury Royal Dark. Cadbury. It also tastes like the little eggs. They not calling this dark. See,
04:58there's no percentage in this. I knew it. Which means it's probably right at the line for being
05:04able to be called dark chocolate. So they want the benefits of calling it dark chocolate without
05:08telling you just how dark it is. Sugar, chocolate, cocoa butter. Milk fat, yet again. Natural and artificial
05:15flavors. So the ingredient that's used the most will be listed first. In this case, sugar is listed first.
05:21If you're looking for the benefits of a dark chocolate, you really want chocolate or cocoa
05:25beans or cocoa liquor to be listed first. Hershey's Special Dark. So this chocolate has a few air
05:34bubbles on it, which means that when they were molding the chocolate, maybe they didn't vibrate
05:38it enough. So when you're pouring the chocolate, you want to vibrate the molds to make sure that the
05:41chocolate is smoothly laid in the mold, that it's even, and to remove any air bubbles that might be
05:47caused from the molding process. Let's see how this one snaps. Oh, almost no snap at all.
05:53Fell apart like a cheap soup. Lots of sugar. Really, really sweet. I'm not getting a lot of cocoa flavor
05:59at all. This is a Hershey bar. So this definitely tastes mass produced to me. I don't taste any
06:04perceivable notes from the cocoa, which means that what they're probably trying to do is mask the flavor
06:09of the cocoa. If you have a good flavor bean, you don't need to add so much sugar because you don't
06:15want to overshadow the natural ingredients of the bean. It's like some type of fake vanilla
06:20that companies use sometimes. Three for three. Special Dark Mildly Sweet. Mildly Sweet. How much
06:30y'all spend on this one? Sugar as a first ingredient. This also has cocoa processed with alkali. If it is
06:36a really bad cacao bean, it's going to be very, very bitter. They use the alkalization to take that
06:43bitterness out and add sugar. PGPR is also in this. What is that? God help us. I don't know,
06:51but it's in me right now. Chocolove. 65% cacao. Rich dark chocolate. This had a good snap. An audible snap
07:03to it. It is sort of crumbling a little bit, and I did notice maybe the slightest bit of bloom. A lot
07:09of times with chocolate, you can pick out two different types of white marks on it, and those
07:14white marks come from something called bloom. First bloom is what's known as sugar bloom. That generally
07:20happens when the chocolate is processed or stored in a high humid environment. The sugar crystals
07:25in chocolate will take on moisture and start to separate from the rest of the ingredients in the
07:30chocolate. The second kind of bloom is what's called fat bloom, and that's when the cocoa butter
07:36comes out of temper from the rest of the chocolate. If it blooms, you're not going to taste that
07:41refined flavor. Sugar bloom isn't really going to affect the texture. Fat bloom from melted cocoa
07:46butter is definitely going to affect the texture. It's going to make it crumbly. It's going to make
07:50it sort of like, like you have to chew through it. The smoothness is there. A little bit of cocoa
07:56flavor, some fig, some raisin. I like the acidity. This has a higher cacao content than whatever those
08:04things ahead before. Sixty percent. Definitely still pretty sweet. We could be tasting that from the
08:10some of the sugar bloom. There's some level of thought. It's pleasant, yes. It's definitely a blend.
08:15This is not a single origin by any stretch. From shape alone, I would say Choco Love. Oh, this one.
08:22Yes it is, baby! So the order is good. The first ingredient is cocoa liquor. Cocoa liquor is one part of
08:29the bean. Cocoa butter is the other part. So both together make chocolate. If you need something real
08:34quick to satisfy the chocolate craving, these are my go-to. Choco Love. 88% cacao. Extreme dark chocolate.
08:44Let's see how this one snaps. That snap was up. This one looks really smooth. The color itself is a much
08:52deeper, darker color. That one's really smooth. Almost too smooth. It's just like sliding down my
08:59palate. It melts well. It's temper. It's not bloom. There's more of an intense roast on this. It's just
09:05a little bitter. When people are like, oh, I don't like dark chocolate. It's bitter. They're kind of
09:09talking about this chocolate. I would say probably in the 80 range for this. Extreme dark chocolate. 88%.
09:16That's really high cocoa percentage. I would take 88 on a day where at least four people
09:23or more have pissed me off. This is what I'll partake in to stop me from busting everybody's ass.
09:31Trader Joe's 72% cacao dark chocolate. That's promising. All right, Snappy. The sound
09:40is well-tempered. This is good. This is a good one. Smoothness is there.
09:45Nothing wrong with the temper here. Really well-tempered product. I'm getting the cacao
09:50flavor. It's about 70%. I have an aftertaste of coconut. Maybe this plant grows where all the
09:57coconut plants are. Cacao and chocolate itself tends to absorb everything around in its environment.
10:04Even when you put a box of chocolate in your refrigerator, it's going to absorb all these
10:09aromas. There's maybe like a little bit of nuttiness in the cocoa, but it's sort of being overpowered
10:14from over-roasting the cocoa beans. The roasting helps caramelize the natural sugars in the chocolate
10:21to give it sort of that fudgy characteristic that we associate with chocolate. It also can sort of
10:27neutralize some off flavors. So I'm guessing that this chocolate is maybe over-roasted because it
10:32wasn't super high quality cocoa. This is Trader Joe's 72% cacao chocolate bar imported from Belgium.
10:41Let me tell you something. Me and TJ? Yo, he be coming through for me, okay?
10:46Apparently, this is a dollar. And it's an amazing quality. They want to make it affordable to the
10:52public. And it says imported from Belgium. Okay, I'm going to tell you a little bit of story. When
10:58cacao went to Spain, it was only consumed as a drink. So the Swiss are the ones that found the
11:06technology on the tempering of the chocolate and become harder. Then the Belgium learned from the
11:12Swiss to make this chocolate, especially the milk chocolate. To temper chocolate at home,
11:18you want to melt down the chocolate above 120 degrees. Let it cool. When it gets to about 90
11:23degrees, you want to take a piece of chocolate that doesn't have bloom, a small piece, like a piece
11:27about this size. You want to drop that in the chocolate. Keep stirring it. The reason you have
11:31to put another piece of chocolate is to seed the chocolate. You're basically showing the polymorphic
11:36crystals in chocolate how to be properly tempered. It's like sort of crazy sounding, but that's literally what
11:42you're doing. You're like slowly melting the seed and that seed is like bonding with the other
11:49crystals to show them like how to be perfectly tempered chocolate. Lint. Excellence. 90% cacao,
11:57dark chocolate. All right. Hold on. I feel like we're getting classy. Very dark. I think this is going
12:02to have good snap. Yup. That's a snap. Okay. You see, this is bloom. It has the whitish,
12:09grayish film. The fat is coming out. To me indicates that this was stored in a high moisture
12:14environment, maybe in a refrigerator. Very smooth. It has that really prominent cocoa
12:21flavor. It's bitter. Small amount of fruitiness. It's too high for me. This is too high. It's probably
12:26in the 90s, like 95. This is warm. It's cinnamon. Very, very earthy. This is a West African chocolate.
12:34Forastero, definitely. A lot of the times, the fudginess that you're tasting in chocolate,
12:38that is uniquely West African. The red fruits, a lot of those tropical flavors are South American.
12:45There are three types of beans. The Criollo, which is the wild. This is the origin of the cacao. Most of
12:51Africa grows Forastero. From the Criollo and Forastero, they created the Trinitarios because the Criollo is a
12:58very delicate plant. So even with this bloom on here, the smoothness of this chocolate definitely
13:03confirms to me that this in like sort of the early stages of sugar bloom isn't really going to affect
13:07the texture. 90%. Deliciously intense, surprisingly balanced. This chocolate-less chocolate, cocoa
13:15butter and cocoa powder. My guess is they want like a really strong chocolate flavor, but they want the
13:22added fat of the cocoa butter to help it melt. Lint, excellence. 70% cacao, dark chocolate.
13:31This color is not as dark as the last one. So the cacao content is clearly lower. Could be from the
13:37cocoa beans grown in different areas are going to have different color to them. Anywhere from like a
13:42light tan to a purple color to like a deep dark color. Snap is good. The smoothness is good. The snap
13:51was good. It's giving some milk though. The taste is nice. It's a balance between bitterness and fruit.
13:56It feels very smooth in my mouth. It could be between 65 to 70. Lint. Oh, it's lint again. 70.
14:06This has vanilla beans in it. That was the flavor. Bourbon vanilla beans. It's giving me that
14:12milky flavor. It has soy lecithin. Soy lecithin is an emulsifier that helps keep the sugar and the fat
14:19bonded in the tempering process. This is something that I would buy if I'm away now. I don't have
14:24access to my own chocolate. Tony's chocolate only. 70% dark chocolate. This is a very thick. What the
14:32hell? Let me see if I can give this a snap. Okay. It's a pretty good snap. The person who made this
14:41is unhinged because you want people to break their front teeth. I still have teeth. I don't like it.
14:48Still that like middle-of-the-road fruit flavor. Brazen, prune, dried fruits for sure. The texture
14:54is not there. It's grainy. It's a good cocoa content. It's a pretty good melt considering how
14:59thick the bar is. Feels like it was refined really well, conched really well. The process of conching
15:05is twofold. One, it's to massage the cocoa particles after they've been refined. The other
15:10reason for conching is to drive off acidity through oxidation. Is this crazy-ass Tony's chocolate only?
15:17Boom. This is Tony's chocolate only 70% dark chocolate. Oh, the sugar's also fair trade.
15:24All right, I see how y'all doing your thing. I know that they're really, really committed to ending
15:29the exploitation in cacao. Great value, 50% dark chocolate. Good temper. That's like a medium snap.
15:40It's not a clean break. Might be an indication of some other kind of fat besides cocoa.
15:44It tastes very chemical. Lots of sugar. What is this? It tastes almost banana. I can tell
15:52that it's not an expensive chocolate. It's smooth. It's super sweet. High vanilla content. The more
15:58commercial brands tend to always like really center vanilla to kind of hide the fact that my beans are
16:05cheap. I wouldn't, you know, eat this for fun. Great value. Huh. This is Walmart? I'm actually
16:13kind of surprised. This is better than a lot of the other ones that we've tried. I'm guessing this
16:17one's also pretty cheap. 50% calling it a dark chocolate. Barely. Natural vanilla flavor. When there
16:24is too much sugar and the combination of vanilla, it tends to have an effect in flavor that, you know,
16:31it almost tastes like chemicals. If you're buying chocolate on a budget, this one's not that bad.
16:38Better Goods. 85% dark chocolate. Nice snap. It's a good flavor. This one melts a little bit
16:46faster than I was expecting, given the snap. When you put it in your mouth, it starts melting by pieces.
16:52In my opinion, it is about the conching and the tempering. In the conching, you're going to put your
16:57soy lecithin, your sugar, and it starts grinding and grinding and grinding. And that is what's going
17:03to make it very smooth, very emulsified, very together. And this is why you do the tempering,
17:09because you want to keep those properties together. This one for me is not bad. It just sort of falls
17:14flat in terms of complexity. It's pretty balanced. It has a pleasant aftertaste, but there's nothing
17:20that's really like sort of jumping out to me in terms of discernible, extraordinary flavors.
17:25Better Goods. 85% dark chocolate. It's well balanced for an 85% chocolate. It's premium
17:34Swiss chocolate, but I appreciate intense and fragrant dark chocolate made with cacao sourced
17:40from Ecuador and Ghana. Thank you. Ecuador and Ghana are known for their high quality
17:45forestero. This is one of the most popular cacao for the industry. Oh, also Walmart. I actually prefer
17:53the cheaper one. Fine and raw. 83% dark. This is nice and thin. I'm proud of it. It has a good snap.
18:02There's some sort of swirling on the top of this chocolate, which to me indicates it might not be
18:07the best temper. A little bitter, a little grainy. It doesn't really melt so well. Maybe it's a little
18:14bit bloom. Not a lot, but a little bit. The texture is like off in some way. The cocoa bean has a shell on
18:21the outside of it and you have to do a good job of removing that shell while you're making chocolate
18:25or else you're going to get some grittiness. My guess is that this has like a higher than usual
18:32amount of cocoa husk in it. It finishes in a way that I don't particularly care for and it's giving
18:38maybe a little bit of a rush job on some of the roasting. The roasting a lot of times can mellow
18:43out some of that acidity. It tastes more green. It tastes more vegetal than the other ones. If you
18:48don't roast it, then it's going to taste more grassy, more green. So this is fine and raw 83% dark chocolate.
18:57Raw chocolate doesn't go through the roasting process. But why do we roast it? It's because it really
19:04enhances the flavors of the cacao. So there is some line of thinking that you maintain some of the
19:11antioxidants and the polyphenols in chocolate if you don't roast it. But chocolate that is roasted
19:17already has such high polyphenols. And I love the fact that this is handmade and in Brooklyn. Shout out
19:22to Brooklyn. Hugh, simple dark chocolate. This is very thick and the temperament is very good. This one is
19:31nice and clear on the top. Okay, good snap. Could be 70. It's not overly sweet. This has a
19:39well-developed flavor. It's actually like pretty well balanced. Smooth. I feel it needs to be conch
19:45maybe longer hours. I'm tasting some smoke and the smoke adds like a umami kind of flavor to it.
19:52This is probably my favorite. This is Hugh, simple dark chocolate. I love you guys. Organic,
19:58unrefined. Coconut sugar is the nectar of the coconut palm. It's a little bit lower on the
20:04glycemic index than regular cane sugar. And then when it's mixed with chocolate, the sweetness doesn't
20:09pop out at you. Godiva, 72% dark chocolate. This is like a little individual piece. This is okay.
20:18I don't want it. Oh, nice. Very nice snap. It's sweet though. A little bit on the gummy side,
20:26which could be an indication of over-refined sugar particles. So when sugar particles get really small,
20:31they tend to want to clump together. Really well balanced though. A little bit of fruit,
20:35a little bit of acidity, deep chocolatey fudginess. Aftertaste though is a little bit, we have like a
20:40a little bit of bitterness, like rubbery flavor. A cup of hot chocolate flavor, which is like,
20:47for me, the hallmark of like all the commercial chocolate makers got together and they were like,
20:52when people want dark chocolate, they wanted to taste like a cup of hot chocolate. I absolutely
20:57believe this is commercial. This is somebody's commercial something. This one really took me on
21:01a journey. The initial flavors were pretty nice, but this aftertaste is really getting me.
21:05Godiva. Oh my God. Very surprised, but very good. This is Godiva Signature, 72% cacao dark chocolate,
21:19eight individually wrapped mini bars. Belgian 1926, so you know it's real, right? We have butter oil here,
21:26which is the first. Not my favorite. I wouldn't eat this if my life depended on it. Clearly my life
21:31didn't depend on it and I ate it today, but the dramatic effect. Alta Eco, 85% cacao, classic blackout.
21:40Snap's pretty good. So this is definitely bloom. It has that white film. I'm nervous. This one crumbles.
21:47Maybe it came out of temper at one point and then re-hardened. The top here indicates that that might
21:51be what happened. I find it too dark for my palate. Flavor's not balanced. The bitterness is taking up a
21:57a lot more space. I want to guess that this chocolate's about 85%. Whoa, this is Alta Eco,
22:03classic blackout, 85% cacao. An 85%, if it is a bad quality cacao, it would take too bitter. It's
22:11darker for my palate, but it's not overwhelming. If you're eating it for like a tasting experience,
22:17maybe not this one, but if you're eating it to restore forests and for the health benefits,
22:22it's pretty good. Beyond Good, 70% pure dark. It's a little thicky. You don't discriminate.
22:30Snap is good. This one's a little bit lighter in color, which could be from the cacao, could be from
22:34milk powder. That's the snappiest one we've tried. Pretty snappy. The flavors are complex. I'm
22:40tasting licorice. I'm tasting fruit. It's very fruity. Fruit forward. A lot of like berry notes. The
22:47texture, it has a little bit of grainy melting. This one is bloom too. Pretty smooth. And the
22:52flavor of this one really trumps a lot of the other chocolates that we've been tasting.
22:56Is this Ghana? Mmm. It's Madagascar. Usually the best fruity cacao comes from Madagascar.
23:06This is Beyond Good. Beyond Good, 70% cocoa, pure dark. Boom. Grown in Madagascar,
23:13made at the source. I mean, that's just so profound. And this has direct trade certification.
23:20You directly trade with the farms. I know these guys. They're really good people.
23:24I needed a comeback. The great value was lingering in my spirit. 365 Whole Foods, 70% cacao,
23:33dark chocolate. Cross section looks actually like exceptionally smooth. There's no indication of any
23:39particles that snap it. It doesn't snap very well. This is a thickness that I really do enjoy.
23:47It's very smooth. Nutty. This one's weird. It's like kind of waxy. It's sort of sticking to my
23:52mouth in like an unpleasant way. Could have vegetable oil instead of cocoa butter. The signs of cheapness
23:57are like that fake vanilla flavor. When you're walking past Bath and Body Works from September to like
24:03Thanksgiving, when everything is like warm sugar, pumpkin pie. That's what this tastes like. Probably
24:09like 70%. Oh, 365. Yeah, 70%. I'm really like sort of tasting the soy lecithin. There are a lot of
24:17good chocolates that you can buy from Whole Foods. This is not one of them. Valrhona, dark chocolate,
24:24Guernaha, 70%. Snap is good. Fruity, sweet, melts good. It's a very pleasant chocolate. It's smooth.
24:33This one has like a higher fat percentage, I would guess. So maybe they're using extra cocoa butter.
24:38There is a little bit of fruit flavor. 70%. Why didn't you tell me? This is what I buy for my
24:47chocolate. Valrhona, 70%. Guernaha. Guernaha was the island where Christopher Columbus landed and the
24:55cacao beans were being traded as money. This chocolate is super easy to work with. It's a brand for chefs.
25:02What made me choose this chocolate is because it's not bitter, it's not too sour, and it's a very
25:09neutral flavor. It's very pleasant. This one is actually made from beans that Valrhona sources.
25:15I love Valrhona. They're good folks. They make good chocolates.
25:19Ritter Sport, 50% dark chocolate. It melts good. Definitely smooth. It has a nutty flavor. Really mild in
25:27flavor. Like coconut they taste. Snackable, kind of sweet for me. It's too sweet. It's not my type.
25:32This is like take a chocolate bar to a movie theater like kind of chocolate. There maybe is a little
25:38bit of milk powder. This is Ritter Sport, 50% cocoa dark chocolate. Sugar first thing. So you can decide for
25:46yourself if you want to eat chocolate that's half sugar.
25:54All right, a little individual. I like these because then I can pretend like I'm not eating a lot.
26:00Every time you open your chocolate you're exposing it to the elements which increases any chance for
26:05bloom. Having smaller individually wrapped pieces allows you to basically eat the part that you were
26:11going to eat and not expose the rest of your bar. Why did I put this whole thing in my mouth?
26:18I don't know why I did that. I was so excited about the miniature sauce. This one's like the most boring
26:26of any of the ones we've tried. Everything texture, flavor is not my palette at all. This is something
26:33that I would probably give out for Halloween and my grandmother tells the answer is no here. This is Meiji
26:40black chocolate from Japan. It doesn't say the percentage. Why do you call it black? This one's
26:44got like quite a bit of ingredients here. The first is sugar and it tastes like it. It has the whole
26:50milk powder. This is a milk chocolate. Blue Stripes, 70% whole cacao chocolate. Snaps. It's not like
27:00blue. It's not. I can't. It's not a good flavor. It's like, I'm sorry, repulsive. It's really bitter.
27:05Definitely like the most like vegetal tasting. There's a depth of flavor here. It's not just
27:11hot chocolate. It's not just vanilla. I like it. It has like this fermented kind of flavor to it.
27:17It's actually not the best. This tastes like it has like some of the shell from the bean in it.
27:22There's a little grittiness here. I know what this is. It has, it doesn't have the shell. It has pieces
27:27of the dried cocoa pod in the chocolate, I think. This is Blue Stripe. Yeah. Blue Stripes,
27:33cacao shell fiber. I have no idea why you would want that texture in it. I don't really see the
27:40benefit in using the exterior pod as an ingredient when it's sort of vital to composting like at the
27:48farm level. I did not enjoy it. It was, it was definitely different, but I like unique and weird
27:54and like kind of quirky, quirky, quirky, quirky things. Theo Pure Dark, 85% dark chocolate.
28:04I'm smelling this intense cocoa scent. Not bad. A little bitter. I like the level of sugar.
28:13This is pretty smooth. No real off flavor. I'm tasting hazelnut. It was really,
28:17really warm cinnamon nutmeg. It has sort of medium acidity and it tastes like it has peanut shell
28:23or almond husk like flavor to it. For a really dark chocolate, this is a pretty mild, pretty tasty.
28:30Theo! Yeah, 85% ground vanilla bean. That's probably is also what's lending toward that nutty kind of flavor.
28:39Fair trade does a really good job of making sure that the farmers never make lower than a specific amount.
28:45This is like pretty good for being 85%. It goes down easier than a lot of other chocolates that are
28:52this dark. Divine, 70% dark chocolate. It has the aroma of cocoa butter, nutty, like raisins.
29:02The smoothness was there. The balance of flavor was there. Not super complex. It has a distinct
29:07flavor. It's a single origin. You cannot make this flavor if you mix different beans. If it's all the
29:13same beans, you can identify like, oh, this is a navy bean. All right, we taste lecithin. One of the
29:18things I'm learning about this experience is that I didn't know I could taste lecithin. As I said,
29:22this is a chocolate that I could eat. Divine. Where does it come from? I never heard of this.
29:28States the name of the farmers union here. Guapa Koku Farmers Union Ghana. So it's obviously is a
29:37bean that comes from one single origin. That is super, super rare. Moza Roth, 70% cacao, dark chocolate.
29:46It is melting really fast. It gives an indication of possibly some sort of lecithin or vegetable fat.
29:52It's a very light snap. This one is not bad at all. Balance is good. It does not have a distinct flavor
30:00like the one that I tasted just previously. Nothing really standing out about it, both positive and
30:06negative, but easy to consume. This could be 70%. The 70% of lint tastes more bitter. And I think it's
30:13because of the type of cacao bean. This is Moza Roth, and this is a 70%. I've heard of Aldi. That's where you
30:22go when you want to buy chicken for 20 cents a pound. Not expensive, I can tell. It's 235.
30:32But it's not bad. Ritual chocolate mid-mountain blend. This one has a lot of flavor. If the food in
30:40front of me is good, and we see a little chaudelaine, that's how you know you made it. Very sour.
30:47Mmm. Very sour. But it's citrus. It's like lemony. Tastes a lot like star anise or like licorice.
30:53Indicates that there was some care given to the fermentation of the cocoa. This is up there. This
30:58is like one of the top ones I've tried. Oh, nice. So this is Ritual chocolate mid-mountain blend,
31:0370% cacao. They make chocolate in Utah in the mountains. Source their beans really carefully.
31:09They make it in really small batches, and you can taste the difference. Cocoa, cane sugar, cocoa butter.
31:15Amen to y'all. Y'all doing it right. Tasting notes actually are strawberry fudge and graham cracker.
31:22Okay, I don't find that at all. Zero. People absolutely perceive flavors differently. It's all
31:27in how your brain is wired. Guess how much this chocolate is? Yeah, probably $12. How the hell do you know that?
31:36Spring and Mulberry. Pure dark. Date sweetened chocolate. So this bar looks like it was poured a
31:41little bit over the mold, but the temper looks good. Okay. It's grainy. This one has a weird
31:49texture. This graininess is a little off-putting to me. It's not bloomed, so I don't think the
31:53graininess is coming from the temper. Flavor wasn't bad though. The flavor is like pretty balanced. Very
31:58much acceptable for my palate, but the texture needs to improve. This is spring and mulberry pure dark
32:07date sweetened chocolate. Date sweetened chocolate. Is that what you're doing? Which would describe
32:13that sort of fibrous texture. Dates are like a pretty good alternative sweetener for chocolate. Like
32:18it has, it's lower on the glycemic index. There's only so far down you can grind a date.
32:24Lily's Extra Dark Chocolate. Let's give it a snap. Let's give it another snap. So it doesn't really snap
32:32that well. So the temper does look a little bit off. I'm gonna do this on the last one. This is crazy.
32:38I snapped it and a boulder came out. Nutty. It's a nut flavor. It's smooth. It's more like a common dark
32:46chocolate. Very well balanced. This one is mild and bitter. Not a lot of like chocolate flavor. And then
32:52the aftertaste there's like pretty strong bitterness. It doesn't feel like a bitterness from cacao.
32:56There's something in this. Mmm. What is that? Maybe like a combination of like stevia and like
33:04sugar alcohol. Is this that no sugar joint? That's what it is. It's Lily's. Extra dark chocolate style
33:13bar. 70% cacao and no sugar added. What the hell is this?
33:17It has chicory root fiber. I mean, chocolate already has fiber, you know, but they added more.
33:28I think this is supposed to be a chocolate for people that suffer from diabetes. But it's not bad.
33:35This is a roast that I like. Everything after that is a no. I would never eat this on purpose.
33:41Now let's see which dark chocolates our chocolatiers and chocolate makers liked the most and the least.
33:48I love the Divine Bar. I thought it was a bar that I could eat every day. I could tell that it comes
33:54from a single origin. I love the Valrhona. It has a good balance of citrus and a little bit of bitterness.
34:01So my favorite chocolate today was definitely the Ritual Bar. It had the most complexity. You could really
34:06taste that it was made from high quality cacao. If I had to choose my favorite dark chocolate today,
34:12it's probably going to go to Hue. Super smooth chocolate bar, balanced flavor, complex. It still
34:20sticks with me. I can still taste it now. My least favorite was Blue Stripe. Tasted more like medicine
34:27than a nice treat. And my least favorite was the Final Raw bar for the price of it. It just had too
34:33much gritty texture to it and too much herbal bitterness. My least favorite bar unequivocally
34:40was that Great Value bar. Everybody is foul for handing that to me. You're gonna pay for good
34:45chocolate. Chocolate is not supposed to cost two dollars. There's no way to take care of the people
34:51involved in supply chain. There's no way to craft it well. Reduce the amount of chocolate that you eat
34:57so you can eat a higher quality chocolate. Make sure to store your chocolate between 60 and 70 Fahrenheit.
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