Charles Chocolates - Cocoa Nib Brittle Bar - Ruby Cacao - Nov. 13, 2019

Chocolate of the Day: 

Charles Chocolates
Cocoa Nib Brittle Bar - Ruby Cacao
Good
Weight: .875 oz. (25 g.) / 3.5 oz. (100 g.) in total bar
Cost: $8.50 for 1 bar (white dot w/ line through it)
Calories: 137.5 calories in 1/4 bar
Purchased from: Chocolate Covered, San Francisco, CA


Welcome to Day #7 of Chocolate and Nibs Theme Week.

Today's picturesque pink Cocoa Nib Brittle Bar—made with Ruby Cacao—was from Charles Chocolates (San Francisco, CA).

This creamy and sweet ruby chocolate* had a slightly fermented red berry (red raspberry and cherry plum jam) flavor, and had golden veins of faintly smoky-savory** toffee brittle running through it.

*Ruby chocolate (made with special ruby cacao beans) was introduced in 2017 by Barry Callebaut, a Belgian-Swiss chocolate company.

**At least compared to the ruby chocolate, these pieces of sweet toffee brittle seemed less sweet and relatively more savory.

Ingredients: ruby cacao bean (sugar, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, unsweetened chocolate, citric acid, soy lecithin), cane sugar, cacao nibs. 

Lake Champlain Chocolates - moka fleck (bar) - Nov. 12, 2019

Chocolate of the Day: 

Lake Champlain Chocolates
moka fleck (bar)
Good - Good +
Weight: 1 oz. (28.3 g.) / 3 oz. (85 g.) in total bar
Calories: 162 calories in 1/3 bar
Cost: $4.99 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Country Sun Natural Foods, Palo Alto, CA

Welcome to Day #6 of Chocolate and Nibs Theme Week.

Today's moka fleck (bar) was from Lake Champlain Chocolates (Burlington, VT). The company, founded in 1983, has been turning out a variety of milk and dark chocolate bars and confections with a variety of flavor inclusions for many years.

The bar was described as "dark-milk chocolate with a jolt of Dominican coffee and cacao nibs" and contained 43% cocoa (solids).

This 43% cocoa milk chocolate bar was sweet, but the included the roasted cacao nibs helped tone down the sugar glow a bit, which dark chocolate fans will appreciate.

This chocolate had smooth, quite sweet mocha latte aroma and flavor, interspersed with "crunchy flecks of house-roasted cocoa nib."*

*I've included Lake Champlain Chocolates' product descriptions (in quotes) in today's write-up because I found them to be accurate, without a lot of marketing fluff. And what I would've written sounded a bit redundant. 

The only language I might change would be the word "jolt" (of Dominican coffee and nibs). I found these flavor elements to be smooth and in-balance. (Milk powder helps mellow the stronger flavors a bit.) But, if you're looking for wake up candy, this chocolate does contain sugar, caffeine (coffee + cacao) and theobromine (the stimulant in cacao).