In the meantime, I have come across my first bar of Kowalski's chocolate, Almond Dark. Kowalski's is a family-run supermarket from the lake-filled state of Minnesota. Somewhere between the racks of delectable deer jerky and luscious lutefisk, Kowalski's has introduced its very own line of dark chocolates. The chocolate wrappers are notably sparse on wording and I personally don't know too much more about Kowalski's, so I can't offer much background on the chocolate. I can describe its taste, or rather, in the words of a real Minnesotan describe it as "Mmmm...Sweet. Very sweet. You bet!" That pretty much sums up the Kowalski's Almond Dark chocolate experience. Of course, there are also almonds too, but a few nuts doesn't make the chocolate a sensation. I'm giving it 1.5 cocao beans based on the sugar-laden chocolate base, but I have to admit that I have a weakness for dark chocolate and almonds and, if given the chance, I could feast on this chocolate all day.

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Fortunately, Goldkenn happens to produce some pretty decent chocolate. Two of the company's country origin bars have been a hit, at least in this humble author's opinion. Trindad and Sto. Domingo managed to delight with complex, but very accessible, flavors. Venezuela, a 72% bar made presumably from Venezuelan criollo beans (although the packaging does not mention it), is also an accessible bar, especially for those still pondering the merits of high cacao chocolate. The chocolate is sweet and buttery with no hints of the more complicated aromas found in many premium dark chocolates -- however, this formula is also the major downfall of this bar. An edge on the sweetness levels works well for trinitario and even more so for forastero chocolate bars, where a pinch of well placed sugar can mask the flaws of a lower quality beans and simultaneously bring out the more positive aromas in the beans. In a criollo chocolate (assuming we are dealing with a criollo chocolate), too much sugar is disastrous -- the depth and personality of criollo is lost, leaving behind a still good, but somewhat plain chocolate bar. Goldkenn Venezuela reminds me of Frey Venezuela, another sweet and sumptuous chocolate bar that lends itself to copious amounts of consumption, without ever revealing the true character of its cacao beans.

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Only Switzerland could hold a "Chocolate War" and actually find sufficient combatants to participate. In fact, a more accurate description of the conflict would be everyone from the chocolate cartel against Villars. Amazingly, Villar emerged from the hostilities with an even greater market share, due to a brilliant marketing coup on the part of Kaiser. With producers and distributors lined up against him, Kaiser slashed his prices and built a parallel distribution chain with branded stores selling Villars chocolates. We see this kind of business model all the time today, but back in 1910, this was a true paradigm change. Today, Villars co-exists on store shelves with Toblerone triangles, Lindt boxes, and Cailler bars, but for a long time the company held a reputation as the black sheep in the industry.

With that little history lesson out of the way, we turn to the real task at hand: checking out the wares. The verdict is mixed. Villars Noir 72% is a straightforward dark chocolate bar. The taste is mild, with virtually no hidden flavors or tones aside from a slight woody taste. There is a nice balance between sweet and bitter and a very crisp consistency which makes a pleasing snap when you first bite into the bar. However, that is all the bar has to offer -- there is nothing extra to appeal to your palate, take hold of your taste-buds, and leave you craving for more.

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We fell in a chocolate vat when we were small.

Apparently, the Poncelet boys used to hang around Augustus Gloop when they were little. The Poncelets, unlike Augustus Gloop, fortunately survived this ordeal and have gone on to create one of Belgium's more innovative chocolate companies. Dolfin bills itself with the slogan "the art of skillful combinations" and, indeed, the Poncelet brothers have been busy combining basic chocolate with almonds, peppercorns, orange peals, mints, and all sorts of interesting ingredients. The time will come to try all these variations, but, to start, we are just going for one of Dolfin's straight-up dark chocolate bar.

Dolfin Noir, 70%, comes packaged in the company's trademark plastic pouch, which looks a bit like a tobacco bag, but is also a brilliant way of keeping the chocolate both fresh and water-resistant, in case you somehow resist the urge to eat the bar in one sitting. Belgian dark chocolate tends to be fairly mild and without complex tastes, and Dolfin Noir definitely falls into this type cast. Dolfin Noir takes a few moments to reveal its smooth consistency and fruity aromas, but eventually does come out with a faint apple and banana taste. There is really nothing to complain about this bar, but the taste might also be considered almost bland. It is a great bar for a quick fix of dark chocolate or, come to think about it, the perfect chocolate to use in combination with other ingredients...

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Indeed, a most ominous dark cloud hangs over Cailler. As soon as the new Cailler bar hit store shelves, environmental groups were in an uproar over the plastic packaging, as reported by NZZ:

...about a month after the relaunch a consumer association from French-speaking Switzerland, the FRC, published the results of a study into the amount of non-recyclable waste that the sexed-up chocolate would create. It dropped a bombshell: the wrapping around 100g of Frigor chocolate, a popular Cailler brand, weighs 50g.

Sales were down 20 percent from January to May and local retailers have taken their case to the consumer with below-the-belt advertising about Cailler. The discounter Denner was particularly nasty, while being creative, with a poster campaign announcing:

Cailler sells packaging. Denner sells chocolate.

Having completely alienated its traditional consumer base in Switzerland, Nestle is apparently moving forward with an export strategy for its battered Cailler brand. Sweets Global Network reports that the importer Wilms/Impuls intends to launch Cailler chocolates in the German market.

In fact, these tribulations in the Swiss market might be worth it, if Nestlé could achieve sufficient growth in international markets to compensate for its losses domestically. Unfortunately for Nestlé, Cailler is a pretty "Swiss" product. Exports have accounted for only 5 percent of Cailler's turnover until now, meaning there is hardly any international presence to leverage for new, immediate sales.

Nestle insists it is too early for a post-mortum and notes that the coming holiday season traditionally accounts for the majority of sales. To be fair, it is indeed too early to pass judgement, but one has wonder if the execs in Vevey might just be praying for a little miracle now.

As with all good things, moderation is the best guide. Fighting back the urge to devour the whole Sprüngli dark chocolate line in one go, I picked out just one bar, the Grand Cru Arriba. It turned out to be a good pick. Grand Cru Arriba makes use of the Arriba cacao beans from the Esmeraldas region in northern Ecuador. High-end chocolate bars tend to use Criollo cacao beans, but occassionally Arriba, supposedly one of the better Forestaro varieties, makes an appearance. Sprüngli Grand Cru proves that Arriba can be the centerpiece of a very good chocolate. In fact, everything about this bar is dedicated to dark chocolate purism, from the the crisp break of the thin wafers, to the subtle, but unmistakeable dark chocolate aroma, to the lightly smoked and fruity taste. Grand Cru is neither as complex in flavor nor as smooth in consistency as some other high-end bars, but these features are ultimately personal preferences. The bar is otherwise quite flawless and, therefore, earns a well-deserved five beans in my book.

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As tempting as it is to try all seven origin bars at once, I've managed to resist this urge and settle for just one at a time. We start with the Grand Cru Java, made from Criollo beans harvested in Java, Indonesia. The bar is obviously of similar composition to the Pamaco Indojaco, another premium dark chocolate produced with Javanese Criolllo and previously reviewed here. Before commenting on the taste, it is worth mentioned that Wellauer's Grand Cru Java has been exquisitely designed and packaged. The golden-wrapped chocolate is slipped in a dark corrugated exterior container. Nestled within the layers of packaging is a large red-hued bar with fine impressions of the cacao beans and the Wellauer logo.

Despite its 64% cacao content, Grand Cru Java is fairly sweet and notably lacking any hint of bitterness. The text accompanying the chocolate mentions coffee and tobacco tastes, but these particular flavors are fairly subdued. Instead, the bar delivers more fruity notes, including a strong hint of figs. Overall the taste is multi-faceted and balanced, which makes for an excellent chocolate. Grand Cru Java is particularly suited as a sumptuous after-dinner dessert, given its sweetness and creamy consistency. And, yes, it is as good as, if not better than the Pamaco Indojaco.

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Mousse au Chocolate Maracaibo has the potential for gastronomic greatness, by subverting plain-old chocolate mousse with a good dose of dark chocolate goodness. Unfortunately, Mousse au Chocolate Maracaibo falls short where it most counts. Good mousse must be smooth and creamy; anything else will not lead to a memorable mousse experience. Mousse au Chocolate Maracaibo is more like a frozen custard. With sufficient time out of the fridge, it does evolve into something more creamy, but it is exceedingly difficult to get beyond its dry, brittle texture. The result is disappointing, especially since the Maracaibo cacao flavors remain sadly locked in the mixture and are never really given a chance to show their superior tastes.
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Maracaibo Grand Cru is a new dark chocolate bar from Steiner Bäckerei, a local chain best known for serving up coissants, sandwiches, and pralines to global-trotting clientele in the Zürich Airport. Maracaibo is a country origin bar, made of Criollo cacao from the Maracaibo region of Venezuela. Leaving aside the unfortunate choice of translucent plastic packaging and awkwardly oversized bar shape for a moment, the chocolate is well designed, with a shiny glow and crisp break. First impressions are positive for this chocolate, with a fine balance between bitter and sweet tastes complemented hints of smoke, nuts, vanilla, and fruits. The taste evolves towards increasing sweetness and lingers for some time after finishing, which may not appeal to everyone. Nonetheless, Maracaibo is a very promising debut in the dark chocolate world for a little bakery.
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It’s hard to believe that I’ve never really had the Lindt Lindor truffles before this. I’ve always looked at them like they’re some sort of compromise ... they’re not a candy bar and they’re not a product of a fine chocolatier. So they never really fit the bill at any given moment.

But let’s just start with me saying that I’m surprised at how good they are, and how glad I am to find their newest one that was sampled at the All Candy Expo was the 60% Extra Dark Truffle.

In Switzerland, you can't walk past a grocery store or a kiosk with encountering the ubiquitous red-wrappered Lindor truffles. Despite their apparent universal popularity, I've managed to pretty much ignore them until now. The simple fact is that milk chocolate truffles have never appealled to my tastes and, furthermore, the idea of biting into those sticky, sugar-filled truffle innards has struck me a definite non-starter.

The existance of an extra dark chocolate truffle changes everything. I'm now very willing to seek out and try this concoction. My expectations are high: candyblog managed to find and taste four varieties of Lindor (white, hazelnut, dark, and extra dark) and gives a sumptous thumbs up to the extra dark truffle:

Extra Dark Chocolate (black wrapper) - rather fruity smelling with a slight note of coconut. The shell was buttery smooth with a rather noticeable bitter and dry bite that really offset the creamy center. Now that I’ve tried them side by side, I much prefer the Extra Dark because the complex flavors of the shell offset the light, creamy, almost-liquid truffle center.

This cocao map from the folks at Sweetriot provides a fascinating overview of the world's cocao bean production. While cocao is clearly a global product, a quick glance at the Sweetriot map reveals an obvious pattern -- all cacao production is located within several degress of the equator. The chocolate tree, with its particular affinity for tropical climates, is responsible for this arrangement. A few hundred years ago, this map would have have looked quite different, with production exclusively limited to central America. In the 16th century, Spanish conquistadors realized the monetary and culinary value of the cocao bean and spread the crop across the globe.

Today, nearly all cocao is produced in Africa and Asia. The chocolate-filled pralines, milk chocolate bars, and chocolate covered snacks lining supermarket shelves are in all likelihood created with some percentage of cacao from farms in Cote d'Ivoire, Indonesia, or Ghana. The Americas, at one time the world's only growers of cocao, have seen their take of cacao production volumes dwindle to a single digit market share. These numbers need to be taken with a grain of salt, especially from the perspective of a chocolate connaisseur. Some of the most prized cocao beans come from plantations in the Americas, and many of the world's finest dark chocolates are composed with beans originating from countries like Ecuador, Trinidad, and Venezuela.

Hungry for more?
Finedarkchocolate.com features a detailed history of chocolate

Xocoatl.org discusses the habitat of the chocolate tree

With chocolate consumption increasing at a rate of 25 per cent a year in the Asia-Pacific region, and 30 per cent in China, chocolate makers fear that coco- bean growers will not be able to keep up with demand.

The article initally focuses on Japan, but it soon become apparent that the real threat is not coming from Japanese housewives snapping up chocolate bars in glitzy Ginza department stores. Ever since the first Dutch sailor gave a chocolate bar to his mistress somewhere in the red-light district of Nagasaki, chocolate has been a staple of the Japanese diat. However, it has taken over 200 years for average annual Japanese consumption to reach a meager 2.2kg per person -- around one-fifth of average annual Swiss consumption. The real growth is coming from across the Sea of Japan, where one billion sweet-toothed Chinese are starting to discover the joys of chocolate:

Annual consumption in China is smaller still at 50g a year, but its population of 1.3 billion, and its rapidly expanding urban middle class, make it the market of the future...But even just 1 per cent of China is 13 million people, which is about the size of Tokyo. That’s why chocolate producers are concerned.

Indeed. Let us shed a few crocodile tears for the producers who will be forced to raise prices at the first sign of cacao shortages, thereby passing the higher costs of cocao beans on to the consumer. Its truly hard to imagine why the prospect of millions of new customers is striking fear into the hearts of producers. If anyone should be concerned about the rise of China and possible squeeze on the cacao bean trade, it should be today's chocolate consumer, who may someday see a substantial rise in the price of chocolate end products. Wasn't that a lesson made clear by the recent rise in gas prices?

Lindt Excellence Ecuador is the darkest of the Lindt origin bars with 75% cacao mass. The chocolate is nonetheless fairly sweet and undeniably fruity. Pears, figs, and most notably green apples swirl in the chocolate primary flavoring. The chocolate avoids any of the adventureous and complex tastes which are sometimes found in premium dark chocolates and instead focuses singularly on its fruity components. It certainly helps to like apples to fully appreciate this bar, but the chocolate is otherwise fairly straightforward, with barely a hint of bitterness from the high cacao contents and a light aromatic aftertaste. Like other Lindt origin bars, Ecuador's texture is wonderfully smooth and soft. Its not entirely fair to make comparisons with the other Lindt origin bars, since a chocolate should be able to stand on its own merits, but its also difficult not to contemplate which Lindt bar is the best. In my opinion, its a tie between Cuba and Ecuador, with Madagascar far behind.
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With Sao Tomé, 75% cacao, Neuhas has created an excellent chocolate. One of the nice things about country origin bars is the chance to taste and experience the differences between regional varieties of cocao beans -- in the case of Sao Tomé, we are speaking about the very common Forastero variety of cocao. The genius of Neuhaus Sao Tomé is to take a bean which is often derided for its bulk production qualities and produce a sumptuous chocolate with a very sophisticated flavor. Sao Tomé is full of fruity tastes, from banana to grape to cranberries, and complementary overtones of cinnamon, spicy, and almond. Acidity and bitterness are kept to a very tolerable minimum. A dry, wooden taste takes some of the lift away from the chocolate, but the overall experience and the wealth of flavors is superb.
Cocao Beans: ]]> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/uberswiss/~3/76702333/neuhaus_sao_tom.html http://www.uberswiss.com/mt/archives/neuhaus_belgium/neuhaus_sao_tom.html Neuhaus /Belgium Thu, 04 May 2006 20:48:24 +0100 http://www.uberswiss.com/mt/archives/neuhaus_belgium/neuhaus_sao_tom.html