I discovered Zotter bars in The Candy Store in San Francisco. They carried several varieties, including one with blood orange, one with cheese, and one with mango and Brazil nuts. I thought long and hard about buying the one with cheese, just because a cheese-filled chocolate bar isn’t something you come across every day, but it was $8 a bar, so I decided to play it safe and opted for the mango-Brazil nuts bar instead of possibly wasting all that money on something too exotic to be enjoyed.
What are Zotter bars, and why are they so expensive? For starters, they’re fair trade and organic and made in Austria. And their creative fillings (of which there are a bazillion creative varieties) are hand-scooped. Hence the hefty price tag. Was it worth it?
According to the Zotter website, the mango-Brazil nuts variety is “Excitingly tropical. Mango and mango puree with Brazil nuts in dark alp milk chocolate.” Dark alp milk chocolate strikes me as oxymoronic. Zotter takes it to mean a 50% cacao content.
The bar carried a strong winey smell. The dark milk chocolate enrobing layer was thin, and I couldn’t get much sense of its flavor profile because the filling’s flavor was so strong. The mango paste filling was quite sweet but tasted to me more of apricot than mango. Little bits of dried mango and Brazil nuts can be found in the paste, which adds a nice chew when you come across them. The Brazil nuts weren’t very noticeable and were too bland to add much in terms of flavor.
My final verdict? $8 is a lot to spend on a single bar, and this particular variety wasn’t worth it to me. An OM. But that won’t stop me from pining after the other flavors. To name a few unusal ones: Lemon Polenta, Rowanberry or Mountain Ash, Spicy Chicken Ensemble – Chilli, Tofu and Sake, Sweet Potato Mocha Rosemary, Tomato Liquid Olive, Wine with Curd Drops, Yellow Chocolate with Brittle, and Beetroot with Galangal.
Cybele tried the Lemon Polenta (zitrone polenta) and Banana Curry.
Varsha