Since we don’t have Trader Joe’s in Rochester, I like to make it a point to shop there and check out their candy selection when I visit my boyfriend in Boston. I picked up a few things over Thanksgiving, including this box of their Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels.
They’re promoted as “buttery smooth caramels drenched in Belgian chocolate, then sprinkled with crunchy rock salt from the Dead Sea”. Each box contains 12 square chocolate-covered caramels, all generously sprinkled with sea salt (some more generously with others).
The dark chocolate shell is thick and snappy and is juxtaposed against a gooey, liquid caramel that has a barely noticeable grain.
The caramel is too sweet for my tastes, for me akin to eating brown sugar. Its strong flavors overwhelm much of the cocoa flavors of the chocolate shell, but the chocolate does have some fruitiness, before turning dusky at the end.
For me, the chocolate and caramel are too sweet. Normally, a sprinkle of salt can offset such sweetness, but I think these guys were overly salted and lent a sourness to the sweet. Each salt crystal was quite large, so it packed quite a wallop.
These aren’t something I’d buy for myself again, but when I shared the caramels with friends, the remainder of the box got quickly gobbled up. An O from me, with the caveat that my friends gave them rave reviews.
If you want another opinion, here’s Cybele of Candy Blog’s take on an earlier version with different packaging.
Varsha