TrulyObscure - article - domicilia - trulyrandom - Chocolove: Dark Fantasies?

This week is chocolate week at Truly Obscure. We bothered many a company, searching for great chocolate experiences and came up with a wide variety. Chocolate, like most great food, is all in the preparation; it can range from cheap Valentine’s day candy you guiltily devour, to expensive pieces bought individually and best enjoyed in small bites. Some people have even tried to take it to the next level, enjoying chocolate the way a connoisseur enjoys wine.

We shall start off with the classic: the chocolate bar. Chocolove, based in Boulder, shows a true devotion to dark chocolate that is admirable. Beyond the flavors like Cherries & Almonds, Orange Peel, and Raspberries, Chocolove has a full spectrum of chocolate content from 33% for milk chocolate to 77% for extra strong dark. Along the way are dark, rich dark and strong dark, so you can figure out just how much cacao you can handle!

The variety of dark chocolate doesn’t stop there, however, as Chocolove provides both organic chocolate bars, as well as a self-dubbed “Chocolatour.” We surprisingly found the organic chocolate to be more apprealing than the non-organic but, as always, the former seems harder to find. Even the local organic market doesn’t carry it.

The “Chocolatour” consist of several single-origin chocolate bars. Each country’s chocolate has a distinct taste, distinguishing it from the others. Don’t worry about being able to tell them apart, the contrast between them is quite striking. Brief descriptions:

Tanzania:
The Tanzanian chocolate was my favorite of the bunch. It is harsh and astringent, as dark chocolate should be, but has a wonderfully sweet cherry liqueur-like taste to it.
76% cocoa

Grenada:
The Grenada bar has a spicy and nutty flavor. Surprisingly, its color is darker than that of the Tanzanian.
60%

Sao Tome:
Smoky is the best way to describe it. The flavor is almost burnt.
70%

Java:
Even though the label said “milk chocolate,” it might appeal more to the white chocolate fans. The flavor… like caramelized white chocolate: rich and sweet.
33%

Surprisingly, my biggest disappointment with the bars are probably their biggest sellers. The Raspberry, and Cherry & Almond bars have a perfectly acceptable flavor, but the texture for the fruit was hit-or-miss with our testers. The Orange Peel, by contrast, had a much better flavor than those chocolates in the shape of an orange you get every year for Christmas. I finally understand why the two flavors were put together in the first place.

The weakest bar was probably the Crystallized Ginger, and though at least one of our testers thought that the combination “worked”, others were much less sure. Overall, Chocolove bars are some of the best we’ve tried, and with such a wide selection of styles and flavors, you’re sure to find something for everyone (about $2 each). The only problem is getting them- available in Hawaii at Foodland, and at a variety of grocery stores nationwide, there is no internet ordering available.