Sunday, January 30, 2011

All natural chocolate post

A few weeks ago I picked up this bar of Valor, a Spanish chocolate company, at a local grocery store:



The cover is surprisingly deceptive. See those big blocks of caramel? Yeah, I totally thought this chocolate was going to have large chunks of toffee inside it. Now look at the chocolate squares. See those little flecks of toffee? That's what's really in the bar. Tiny bits of toffee. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I was hoping for something a little more... well, toffee-ish. As for the rest of the bar, the chocolate was superb - no complaints there. I guess I just felt underwhelmed because I was expecting more too it.

As a side note, check out Valor's website. I saw the link on the back of the bar and decided to check it out, but I was unprepared for what looks like a porn site for chocolate lovers. "Chocolates Valor: adult pleasure." "Over a century dedicated to the pleasure of working for pleasure." I know chocolate is good, but I honestly thought I had typed in the wrong address when the page loaded.

Now on to something a little better.



I LOVED this chocolate. Despite being a little expensive (I think I paid about $5 for it), the flavor in this bar was incredible. The chocolate was deliciously smooth, and the cherry chunks were bigger than the tiny toffee specks in the Valor bar. It's also comforting to find a bar of chocolate that has only three ingredients, all of which have pronounceable names (semisweet chocolate, cherries, evaporated cane juice). In addition, all of the ingredients are listed as organic, which helps explain the price. If you want to support organic chocolate, buy a Seeds of Change bar.

I was also quite taken with the packaging of the bar. Like the Dolfin chocolate I reviews a few months ago, Seeds of Change comes as a pouch with three mini-bars of chocolate inside.



This helps keep the chocolate fresh, and also doesn't make you feel as though you're scarfing down large portions of chocolate in one go. Instead of eating 1/3 of a bar (which would make me feel guilty), I had no problem devouring one of these smaller squares in one sitting.

My only complaint is that I couldn't really taste the vanilla. Since the package has "Dark Chocolate with Cherries and Vanilla" on the front, I expect to be hit with the immediate flavor of vanilla. Not so. If the vanilla was there, it was far too subtle for my liking.

Valor Dark Chocolate with Toffee: 3.5/5
Seeds of Change Dark Chocolate with Cherries and Vanilla: 5/5

3 comments:

  1. Definitely better than those Hershey kisses I was eating last night, I'm sure! Ha! I see what you mean with that site. The words "adult pleasure" are the second script to pop up, and I would expect nakedness, or something even more, to pop up right afterward, and then the chocolate bars pop up. It's like porn for chocolate lovers. If only their bars were better, and not misleading.

    Yay! for natural food. And the quality is usually so much better. A shame about the lack of vanilla, though I would be more disapointed if that flavor was too overpowering. Viva dark chocolate over vanilla! :)

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  2. So where does one purchase a seeds of change bar?

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  3. I'll keep an eye out for a Seeds of Change bar!

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