A Chocolate Tasting

So far we have managed to avoid all sorts of new-fangled tastings like oil, vinegar and water (water?!?). We got sucked in to wine tasting, I admit, which led to purchasing cases of delicious late-harvest dessert wines etc., but now we have discovered a new joy: tasting luxury chocolate.

The unassuming local grocery on a street we infrequently visit turns out to have half a wall of specialty chocolates. Unable to resist, we picked up four:

Cafe Tasse Blanc (white, for my companion) at $2.29 for 45g
Fran's Gray Salt Caramels at $7.79 for 7 pieces
(not solid chocolate, but still worthy of mention)
BruCo 72% fondente anice at $4.89 for 60g
Vosges Barcelona Bar at $3.89 for 85g

I mention price because it turns out that more expensive does not necessarily mean better. Why am I not surprised?

In order of the above, some comments:

The white chocolate was entirely mediocre. I vote for Lindt's plain white as the best white chocolate around, even though I clearly need to taste some more white. The problem is, why taste white when you could have dark?

Salt caramels are all the rage, and I have had one extremely good one (huge with a price tag to match) so these ones simply didn't live up to my expectations. Too much salt, too much sugar - just too much overall.

This Italian anise chocolate, BruCo, has apparently won awards, and well it should. Unbelievably creamy for 72%, this stuff is divine. The anise doesn't taste like anise, somehow - or at least is doesn't overpower the chocolate, which seems to transform the spice into something softer and sweeter. I will be trying to find this stuff again - look here for some more details on the origins of the chocolate and the company.

Finally, the prizewinner. This may be the best chocolate I have ever had in my life, although it is flavoured and milk, so I'm not sure if that counts. I bought it as an experiment - I'm not big on milk chocolate, but I thought I'd try it for the grey sea salt, which I'd never seen added in a bar before. Vosges calls it an "exotic candy bar" - it's 41% cacao and has both salt and hickory smoked almonds, so the experience is very smoky, sweet and sharply salty simultaneously.

There is so much going on in this chocolate that I can only eat one piece at a time, but it is so very good! These people are not afraid of thoroughly salting their chocolate, so there are chunks of salt whose crystals snap under the teeth and then melt on the tongue, exploding with almost metallic minerals all within a sweet-and-smoky haze. As their website indicates, they've got even more exciting ideas about what belongs in chocolate. Very creative, very delicious. Go out and find some!