Chocolate Tasting #3

Well, we are apparently not doing all that much cooking lately. Why? Because we're eating chocolate instead. We walked over to Bittersweet today and picked up two new bars: Michel Cluizel's Plantation "Mangaro" (65%) and Divine's mint dark chocolate (70%).

Bittersweet is pricey - they sell almost all the Vosges bars (at least we now have a source) at $8 a piece (unfortunately an over-priced source), and these two were $6 and $4 for 3.5 oz. respectively. Let's see how they taste.

The Cluziel is supposed to be citrusy. It looks fairly pale, not surprising for 65%, and frankly I don't detect a heck of a lot of citrus. It does have a fruity je ne sais quoi, though - the package explains that this Madagascar chocolate plantation was planted on former mango tree land. I wonder if M. Cluziel thinks the earth has imbued his chocolate with the scent of mango. If so, it is decidedly green mango. This chocolate is tart! I like it alright, but I won't go out of my way to get it again. It is a very hard bar, and the texture is almost waxy at the outset. Towards the end the tartness really comes out, which I rather like, but the path to the final experience is a bit too involved in my opinion, even though the chocolate is undeniably good. I really wish M. Cluziel wouldn't write his name on every tiny piece (Vosges does this too, but somehow it doesn't bother me as much). I prefer the plainer-looking bites of . . .

. . . Divine chocolate, which is organic and free-trade. The chocolate from this bar comes from a co-owned plantation in Ghana. I can smell the mint from here! (An aside: two minutes later (before tasting the Divine) I can still taste the Cluziel - it has a very long and oddly fiery finish.) There is a surprise in this bar: crystals of minty sugar (I'm glad they didn't use salt for once). A lot of minty sugar, in fact. I'm wondering if the sweetness doesn't overwhelm the chocolate in this case, although I like the crunchy texture and the overall experience. I'm not entirely convinced of the quality of this chocolate, but it is so infused with mint and sweetness that it is a bit hard to tell. This is a decent bar, if you like sweet, at this price, I'd say.