Part II of II of the Meiji Chocolate tasting (courtesy of my worldly friend Michael) that started on Monday. Today, we shall begin with the somewhat incongruously named Black Chocolate.
Why incongruous, you ask? Because for a bar that’s named BLACK in giant letters, this one isn’t very dark in taste or appearance, though it did have a nice snap to it. You can see the coloring for yourself below. It’s definitely brown, not black, and it’s not even a very dark brown at that.
This “dark” bar had a nicely smooth melt, but that’s less of an accomplishment when your cacao percentage isn’t that high. It also tasted quite sweet, for too sweet for a dark bar. I found its finish to be fruity; berries, perhaps? Overall, an OM. As chocolate, it’s not that bad, but it’s also not that great. As a dark chocolate bar, it should hang its head in shame.
The Meiji Rich Matcha bar was another bar where the color is worth noting. Matcha is a green tea used in Japanese tea ceremonies and is also used as a flavoring for lots of Japanese foods. The wrapper is an iridescent green and is sort of pretty, in a cheaply flashy way.
The chocolate bar itself, not so much. Instead of being a bright, fresh, spring-timey green, it’s the color of pea soup. While I’m unsure as to how appetizing bright green chocolate would look, I can tell you that G.I. Joe green chocolate is not appetizing. Especially when it smells and tastes like flowers.
I don’t know if matcha is supposed to taste like flowers, but Meiji’s Rich Matcha bar had a strong floral scent and a sweet floral flavor with a slightly bitter finish that lingers a bit, almost imperceptibly. I’d wear that lovely floral scent as a perfume, but I didn’t like eating it in my chocolate. This bar was really not for me and gets a —. You can read Terry’s take on it here; he didn’t much care for it either.
Varsha