ZOMG, Candy!

Disclosure alert: These mints were samples sent by Newman’s Own.

I love the packaging on these Newman’s Own mints. They took the Altoid’s-like tin we’re used to and made it more exciting with the old fashioned circus advert. The top of the tin informs you that they’re made with organic sweeteners.

My first thought on opening the tin was, “Well, they certainly look organic. Instead of the bright pink Altoid’s cinnamon mint color, the Newman’s Own mints were a brownish-yellow that made them look quite wholesome and free of refined sugar.

The mints do, in fact, have a darker sweetness to them, as if they were made with molasses or brown sugar instead of refined white sugar. In other words, they taste as natural as they look. Unfortunately, they also taste rather unpleasant. The cinnamon flavor is present, but it’s too light to have any breath freshening properties. And the aftertaste! Ugh! The mints made me feel like I had just swallowed some nasty cough syrup or ginseng medicine. And while the cinnamon flavor was too light to linger as a mint’s flavor should, that medicinal aftertaste was stuck in the back of my throat and would not go away.

I left these in my common room, hoping that one of my nine suitemates would find them appealing, and they’re no longer where I left them, so someone either slipped them into her purse or threw them out. I’m just glad to be rid of them. An O, coupled with a wish that I had a lower ranking that I could assign it.

The last bar of 3400 Phinney (BUY!) Week is Chai Tea Milk Chocolate with a 40% cacao content. Theo’s website describes this one as “milk chocolate with a warming blend of chai spices and black tea.”

I love, love, loved this bar. I don’t drink chai tea because I usually find it too sweet, but this bar was just right. Because I don’t drink chai tea, I had a hard time naming the spice flavor I got from this bar in my blind tasting. My notes say “great cinnamon-y(?) notes. Not sugary cinnamon; genuine, real cinnamon spice,” which is the best way I could describe that chai spice essence. Another friend mused that the flavor was like cinnamon but not quite and wondered if the bar had cloves. A little research revealed that chai spices can include cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, and star anise. So we were close-ish.

Many of my friends didn’t really like this bar, and several of them felt the “weird” spice flavor overwhelmed the chocolate. I found the flavor intriguing, and it kept me reaching for more pieces. Like all the 3400 Phinney bars, this too was smooth and creamy. A ZOMG! from me because I couldn’t stop eating it. It was my favorite of the 3400 Phinney bars and probably the only one that I would regularly buy for snacking (if I could afford it; at $3.25 a bar, these don’t come cheap). Amongst my friends, this came in 11th out of 13 (just one spot above the Dagoba Chai) with a score of 2.67/5, so it’s not for everyone.

I was quite impressed with Theo’s 3400 Phinney line, and it doesn’t hurt that they’re all made with organic and fair trade ingredients, though that does drive up the price. I’d love to taste the other 3 varieties. Cybele from Candy Blog reviewed all 6.

Theo 3400 Phinney Week (BUY!) continues with the Vanilla Milk Chocolate with a 40% cacao content. The Theo website calls this one “a harmonious blend of finely ground Madagascar vanilla bean and milk chocolate.”

This milk bar had a European/Cadbury-finish which I found to be quite good. The melt is smooth and the mouthfeel creamy. I thought I tasted hints of bread or toast, but my palate is untrained, and it also may have just been the power of suggestion (I knew one of the bars would be the bread & chocolate).

The bar looks pretty dark in the photo, and it’s not just a trick of the light. 40% is a high cacao content for a milk bar, and many lesser chocolate companies would try to pass that off as a semisweet. I thought this bar was wonderful for a “milk” bar, and I thought the sweetness level was just right. An OMG from me, and a 3.71/5 from my friends, making it good enough for 4th place at my chocolate tasting party.

Theo’s 3400 Phinney bars (BUY!) are named after the chocolate factory’s address (3400 Phinney Ave. in Seattle, Washington). Someday, I hope to make a Theo pilgrimage. Theo makes 6 varieties of 3400 Phinney bars; all are organic and fair trade certified. I managed to get 3 of them for my chocolate party. Welcome to 3400 Phinney Week!

First up is the Bread & Chocolate, a dark 65% cacao. The website description (there’s none on the wrapper) called this “an innovative twist on a traditional pairing, featuring dark chocolate with buttery, toasted artisan breadcrumbs and the perfect amount of salt.” The ingredients? Cocoa beans, sugar, cocoa butter, French bread (wheat flour, water, yeast, sea salt), butter, sea salt. Impressively simple.

This bar came in last out of 13 at my chocolate party with an average of 2.04/5. Many friends complained that it was too salty and too bitter. A few people, myself included, didn’t like the texture of the bar. The bread crumbs, which I mistook for rice crisps that wouldn’t dissolve properly, added an unpleasant grit and also made the bar quite dry. With a high 65% cacao content, this bar is on the bitter side and definitely not for everyone. I got a strong coffee finish. An OM from me. I liked it, but it’s too sophisticated to be a frequent indulgence.

Today marks the finale of Dagoba Chocolate (BUY!) Week, and I’ve saved the most interesting for last!

The Dagoba Chai is 37% milk chocolate, crystallized ginger, and spices. That last “spices” bit is annoyingly generic, and the ingredients list isn’t much help. There “spices” is replaced with “essential oils.”

When I ate this bar, I couldn’t figure out what the spices were because the ginger taste was incredibly strong. It overpowered everything. I like the essence of ginger in cooking, but I can’t stand ginger itself, probably because as a kid I accidentally ate too many slices of ginger out of our family stir fries (always an unexpected and unpleasant taste sensation).

Still, there was something about this bar that was intriguing, and it kept me reaching for more pieces. I never actually enjoyed it, however, so it only gets an O. At the chocolate party, this came in 12th (out of 13) with a score of 2.57/5. It was interestingly polarizing. Lots of 1s and 2s, but also a raving 5 and a few 4s. Comments ranged from “wtf funny flavor,” to “niceish - strange” to “can’t really describe it.” A few called it medicinal, which is understandable (anyone else forced to drink ginger root tea as a kid?).

The roseberry was the one I was most excited to taste. A dark bar (59% cacao) with raspberries and rosehips - sounds delicious! And it was pretty good. I loved how pretty the bar was. The pink bits of raspberry looked gorgeous against the dark, glossy bar.

I didn’t taste any rose notes when I sampled this bar, but the floral scent is definitely there. The raspberries add a gentle fruitiness that I wish was a little more noticeable. They also added a slight grit to the bar that I could have done without. An OM from me, and a tie for 5th with 3.533/5 from my friends.

Overall, I really enjoyed these Dagoba bars, even if none got a review above an OM. I think their ratings may have been skewed a little low because I tasted them with a bunch of other bars, some of which were less subtle and more interesting. The dark 59%, the hazelnut, and the roseberry were all on the brink of earning that extra G, but I pulled back because Dagoba bars are so pricey. The ones I bought cost $3.29 at the overpriced campus convenience store, but even online they’re $3.00 a bar.

I liked the Dagoba chocolate bars enough to want to eat my way through all the different varieties, though that would quickly get expensive. Dagoba will definitely make another appearance at my next chocolate party.

Dagoba Chocolate (BUY!) Week continues with the milk and hazelnut bars!

The milk bar is pretty straightforward. Milk chocolate, 37% cacao solids. According to Wikipedia, anything over 35% cacao can be called dark chocolate, so I appreciate that Dagoba still called this milk.

It’s a European/Cadbury-style milk chocolate with a yogurty finish (as opposed to the sour finish Hershey’s milk chocolate has). “Feels British,” wrote one of my friends. Others felt that the milkiness was too overpowering.

Like all Dagoba bars, the texture is smooth and creamy and wonderful. It’s good but unremarkable and a little too sweet (I’m a dark chocolate lover). An O for the Dagoba milk. A wonderful milk chocolate bar that suffered from my dark-bias. If you like milk chocolate, European-style, you’ll love this. It took 8th place with a 3.33/5.

The hazelnut bar was made from 37% cacao milk chocolate, roasted hazelnuts, and rice crisps.

Really, it’s hard to go wrong with hazelnut and chocolate, This bar was well studded with pieces of hazelnut, and it was wonderfully - you guessed it - hazelnutty. I found it a little too sweet, but most chocolate/hazelnut candies skew towards the sweet side, so it’s understandable.

I didn’t notice any rice crisps, and because it was a blind tasting, I didn’t know to taste carefully and seek the crisps out. Cybele’s review complained of too few crisps, so I’m going to agree with her. I give this bar an OM. Good, but uninspiring. This came in first at my chocolate party with a score of 3.96/5. I think it was so well liked because of the near universal appeal of chocolate and hazelnut.

Welcome to Dagoba Week! This week’s 6 Dagoba bars were blindly tasted by 14 of my friends (and me!) at my chocolate party along with 7 other non-Dagoba chocolate bars. I had my friends rate every chocolate that they tasted on a scale of 1-5.

The New Yorker ran an excellent piece on Dagoba Chocolate in their Halloween issue this year. I read the fascinating article after tasting my way through the half a dozen Dagoba bars (BUY!) (they offer 18 classic bars plus 3 single origin bars on their website; I have a lot more tasting left to do!), and it only made the company more impressive in hindsight. Even if Hershey’s does now own it.

The Dagoba dark 59% is a dark bar with 59% percent cacao (duh). The ingredients list is pretty incredible: Organic Dark Chocolate (organic cacao beans, organic evaporated cane juice, organic cacao butter, 0.5% non-GMO soy lecithin). Impressive, no?

The bar had a strong snap and a beautifully dark gloss. The melt and mouthfeel were incredible - soooo creamy and smooth - and it had a great finish. I thought the mild sweetness was perfect, though one of my friends, an admitted dark chocolate hater, found it too bitter. Others loved it. A couple found rum or alcohol notes, which surprised me, as I didn’t notice any.

I give it an OM. It’s delicious and the best plain dark chocolate bar I’ve yet to taste, but there’s no gimmick to the bar to make it special enough to really stand out. Still, it is now my go-to dark bar for slow savoring, provided that I have a little extra to spend (Dagoba bars are expensive!). The Dark 59% tied for 5th at the chocolate party with a 3.533 out of 5.

The Dagoba Lime bar is dark chocolate (59% cacao), lime, and macadamia nuts. The chocolate is smooth and creamy, which is unsurprising. I expect it’s the same chocolate base as the dark 59% bar.

I broke up the bars into small pieces for tasting. The piece I got must have not had any macadamia nut pieces in it because I have no macadamia nut related notes on this bar. I can’t imagine they would have made a huge taste difference, and macadamia nuts are pretty bland, though buttery. The lime component of this bar is subtle but definitely present. Overall, the bar was good, but I personally didn’t care for the limey finish. Another OM from me. This placed 10th in my friends’ ratings with a score of 3.133/5.

Chocolate party, that is. I’ve been stockpiling nice chocolate bars and haven’t gotten around to eating them yet. Now I have too much chocolate to possibly eat on my own (my life is so hard, I know), so I’m going to throw a chocolate tasting party. Yum!

The featured guests:

According to Larabar’s website, these bars used to be called Maya bars. They’ve replaced the cocoa nibs in Maya bars with ground cocoa beans for a smoother texture and renamed the result. The Jocalat name sounds swankier (because we’re not sure how to pronounce it), and it lets Larabar use an accent breve (it’s amazing what I still remember from my high school French classes) to create a fancier looking logo.

Jocalat bars (BUY) are made with organic and fair trade certified ingredients, usually some combination of organic dates, organic nuts, organic cocoa mass, organic cocoa powder, and organic flavoring. They’re gluten free, dairy free, soy free, kosher, vegan, and with no added sugar. Unlike regular Larabars, these are made from only 90% raw ingredients because the cocoa beans must be roasted, but that’s still impressive.

The bars come in chocolate, chocolate mint, chocolate orange, and chocolate coffee. As an energy bar or meal replacement bar, they’re pretty good. I personaly prefer the texture of Clif Bars to Jocalat, but I do find the Jocalat bars much more palatable than Powerbars and Odwalla bars.

All four bars are softy, chewy, and studded with nuts. The texture sort of resembles that of fudge, like a stiff puree with an extremely fine grain.

Chocolate - This bar is nuttier than the others, containing walnuts, almonds, and cashews in addition to dates. That’s according to the label, as I couldn’t distinguish between the different nuts as I was eating the bar. It smells deliciously of rich chocolate with a sweet and sour fruity overtone. While the Larabar website claims it to be as indulgent as a fudge brownie, I find that claim a stretch. Real fudge brownies are much better, but real fudge brownies are also full of sugar and butter and bad for you things. The Jocalat bars are fairly chocolate-y but not cloyingly sweet. Unfortunately, the Jocalat bar also has a bit of a sour aftertaste, possibly due to the dates. It’s not terribly unpleasant, but I could do without it.

Chocolate orange - The bar contains only dates and almonds and smells of a freshly peeled orange, and the taste of orange is definitely there. The sour aftertaste is less objectionable here, I think because orange is supposed to be sour.

Chocolate mint - This date and almond filled bar has a strong smell of peppermint, but it doesn’t taste as minty as it smells. The mint taste lingers a bit after the bar is swallowed, and it serves to completely hide the sour taste I found in the chocolate.

Chocolate coffee - According to the website, this bar has significantly more caffeine than the others. It smells sweetly of chocolate covered espresso beans. Tastewise, however, the coffee flavor is only barely detectable as a light aftertaste. In fact, if not for the coffee smell, it find it nearly indistinguishable from the regular chocolate bar. The chocolate coffee is also sweeter than the other bars, and that slight sour taste is pretty obvious.

Overall, I’m impressed that Larabar made something this tasty out of wholesome, mostly raw ingredients. I would recommend these if you’re on a vegan, raw food, gluten-free, or casein-free diet, and I know several parents of children with autism that may find these to be a valuable addition to the pantry and well worth the cost. As for me, I try to eat healthily, but I’m not health conscious to the point of spurning all processed foods. I’ll probably spend my money on deliciously bad for you candy bars instead.