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August 2005

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Single Origin Chocolate

Name: Unique Origin Ocumare & Guaranda
Brand: Chocovic
Place Purchased: Trader Joe’s
Price: $1.79 each (they’re much more expensive here)
Size: 2.82 oz
Calories per ounce: 153
Type: Chocolate

This is not a new product to me, however, I’ve gotten a couple of notes (one email and one comment) to review this, so here goes. My husband bought a set of three of the unique origins bars one year before vacation and we took them with us to rocky beaches, windswept dunes and rolling oak-dotted hills of the central Californian coast, so any pleasant past associations with the bars must be taken into account.

The bars in question were from the cocoa crop of 2004. The freshness date said they were best before 04/2007.

First was the Guaranda, which is 71% cocoa solids of forastero arriba cocoa from Ecuador. The tasting notes on the back: “Perfumed aroma with fruity, acid notes and floral tones of acacia honey, with milky and exotic wood nuances. Typical personality of the cocoa bean: smooth dark chocolate taste with floral tones of honeyed character.” The ingredients are simple: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter and soya lecithin.

My tasting notes: the scent is woodsy, smoky and a bit like coffee. The surface is smooth and shiny (better than the photo) with a red hint to it. Upon biting into it, it snaps easily and melts quickly on the tongue. The cocoa mass is very smooth, not at all gritty. It’s very dry yet the cocoa butter gives it a slippery, cool feeling on the tongue. I don’t detect much of the honey notes, but the butteryness gives it a sort of empty feeling, like there’s a top and bottom but no middle flavors.

Next was Ocumare, which is 71% cocoa solids of criollo cocoa from Venuzuela. The tasting notes on the back: “Smooth perfumed aroma with tones of exotic wood, nuts and dried fruit as well as spicy nuances. Refined and lasting taste, balanced and round at the same time. Also, aspects of cedar, tobacco and dried plums are particularly noteworthy.” The ingredients are the same as the first: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter and soya lecithin.

My tasting notes: the smell is woodsy with more of a fruit note to it, perhaps apple. The color is a dark and consistent brown with a good snap to the bite. It immediately starts to melt on the tongue. It has a rounder flavor just as the package suggests with more middle notes of sweet apple or apricot (I’m not catching the plum here). It’s a much fuller flavor from top to bottom with absolutely no grain to it. Towards the end there’s less of a dry finish but a nice lingering woodsy note.

For high end 70%+ bars, I think these are the best I’ve tried to date. Though the single origin means that you may never get these bars again, they’re wonderfully balanced with an excellent smoothness. I do think overall that I prefer a blended chocolate to get the full-bodied taste with a multitude of notes (like a chorus instead of a soloist) but if you hadn’t told me that they were single origins, I could still state unequivocally that these are good bars. Where I find so many upscale bars lacking in the cocoa butter/smoothness factor, these bars excel at the melting and without any graininess at all.

I wouldn’t say that they’re worth more than $3.50 per bar though, like you might be charged some places. So if you can get them at a Trader Joe’s or other similar economical location (maybe Cost Plus carries them), they are the best $2 you can spend on a high-cocoa content bar.

Interesting facts from the package: Chocovic is based in Barcelona, Spain and has been in business since 1872.

Rating - 9 out of 10.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:13 am     CandyReviewTrader Joe'sChocolateSingle Origin9-YummyUnited States

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Icons for You!

I decided to create a new icon for my chat program.

Here are some others, feel free to take them and use them.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:17 pm     ReviewFun Stuff

Ear Candy

Once again, I will be doing a radio interview. This time with a program called Radio Open Source. It will be broadcast live (yee!) at 4PM to 5PM Pacific time (check their site for stations that might carry it near you). You can also hear a live stream (and call in!), on XM channel 133, or catch it later in the archived broadcast (or subscribe to the podcast).

The coolest part is the OTHER guest on the show is Steve Almond, author of Candy Freak (I promise, I’ll write a review soon, which I can sum up here as, “Good! Go read it!”) The topic is basically about candy and its role in our everyday lives - I think some people think that candy is fixed entity but it really changes with us through the years. Our tastes as individuals change and our tastes as a society change. Things we loved as a kid have come and gone, and yet others were eaten by our grandparents and may be consumed by our grandkids. Threads that bind the generations.

What’s cool about Open Source is that things are transparent. They put up a blog entry on a show that they’re “warming up” and you get to comment and help shape the focus of the hour, then the show goes “on deck” and they show you their pre-interview notes and then folks can comment. Then they do the show and it stays in “recently aired” for folks to continue the conversation (great if you don’t catch the live show or stream but still want to add something).

So, here’s your chance to talk about candy!

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:56 am     NewsRadio Interviews

Grapefruit & Blackcurrant Pastilles

Name: Blackcurrant and Finest Pink Grapefruit Pastilles
Brand: Dr. Doolittle’s
Place Purchased: Trader Joe’s
Price: $1.99 each
Size: 2.5 oz (approximately 34 pieces)
Calories per ounce: 95
Type: Jelly

A few weeks ago I got an email from a kind reader named greenhaven suggested that I try Rowntree Blackcurrant Pastilles, since I couldn’t find them, I picked these up. (I know, they’re not at all the same.) I’ll keep looking though, as I remember liking “wine gums” that I bought at a newsstand in London quite a bit. I’m not sure all folks consider pastilles candy, after all, most people think of them as throat lozenges. However, as a person who used to eat cough drops as candy, I fully embrace these as sweets. (One of my favorites was Smith Bros Black Licorice.)

These are soft and chewy, but wonderful to suck on and kind of fold up as it gets smaller in your mouth. The glycerine provides a soothing, moisturizing coating to dry throats. But what’s best about these is the intense flavor. Packed with more flavor than just a gummi bear or hard cough drop, these are zesty. They come in little tins (the size of Altoid tins, only gold.)

The pink grapefruit has a wonderful zest with a good rounded tartness that goes through and through. The blackcurrant is smooth and tart with a good winey note to it. I prefer the grapefruit ones, mostly because I’m just not a blackcurrant fan. These are very soft and I don’t really like them this soft, so sometimes I’ll just leave them open for a day so they can toughen up.

They have 18% of your daily requirement of Vitamin C (in 2 drops) and their ingredients are all natural. If you go on the Dr. Doolittle website (it’s in French) and click on production, you can see how they make the drops by pouring the mix into little molds.

Rating - 7 out of 10 (I buy them a couple times a year, they’re rather expensive)

UPDATE: I found a new local supply of Dr. Dolittle’s Pastilles. They come in Lemon, Blackcurrant and Pink Grapefruit. Different tins now, a lot more expensive. See new review here.

Related Candies

  1. Dr. Doolittle’s Pastilles (Lemon, Grapefruit & Wild Berry)
  2. Jelly Belly Pomegranate
  3. Black Ace Licorice
  4. The Real Jelly Babies

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:52 am     CandyReviewDiscontinuedGummi Candy7-Worth ItSwitzerland

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Rocky Mountain Huckleberry Gummi Bears

Name: Wild Huckleberry Gummi Bears
Brand: Rocky Mountain
Place Purchased: Missoula, Montana
Price: gift from Amy
Size:
Calories per ounce: no nutrition information on the package
Type: Gummi Bears

I know, you’re asking yourself, “what is a huckleberry? and is a wild one better?”

Well, first, a huckleberry is related to the blueberry and cranberry, or so says Wikipedia. And if my experience with wild strawberries and wild blueberries means anything, the wild ones are smaller and more expensive and hopefully organic.

However, upon further examination of the package, I found the following ingredients listed: Corn syrup, sugar, gelatin, artificial color, citric acid, artificial flavor, lactic acid, mineral oil and carnuba wax. Hmm, nowhere in there does it mention huckleberries.

No matter. these fellows are cute anyway, with the carnuba wax shines and their A emblazoned on their little chests. Wait, what’s the A for? Got me, they’re distributed by the Benjamin News Group and the brand seems to be “Rocky Mountain”, not really any A initials there. Are they adulterous bears?

They’re very soft bears, with a nice tart flavor and a pretty smell, a cross between blackberries and violets. They’re cute and fresh and so easy to pop in your mouth even if they purely a chemistry experiment. The color is exquisite, especially if you line them up on the desk. The trick, if you must know, if you want to get them to stand up is this: get a clean piece of white paper then lick the bottom of the bear (lightly, we don’t want a lot of slobber) and then press them down gently on the paper in a row. A little backlight and they’re practically luminous.

Rating - 7 out of 10 (they might be gone by the end of the day)

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:02 am     CandyReviewGummi Candy7-Worth ItUnited States

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