REVIEW: Alter Eco 85% Cocoa Deep Dark Blackout Organic Chocolate

Ingredients: *Organic cacao beans, *organic cocoa butter, *organic raw cane sugar, *organic vanilla beans (*Fair Trade Certified™ by Fair Trade USA, total 100% Fair Trade ingredients)

I’ve had Alter Eco’s Brown Butter 70% Chocolate bar before and recall that as a PHENOMENAL experience. Wanted to see if the “plain” version could hold up to that same experience.

Each bar has ten sections with a height of about two millimeters. It takes some strength with your hands or teeth to break, which generates a loud and satisfying snap. The texture is incredibly creamy with a smooth melt that feels like a medium length of time to melt down–not too long, but not immediate either. The mouthfeel is velvety.

Flavor-wise, it’s balanced and tastes of vanilla that finishes as a tangy, fruity note. The 85% is sweet enough to compliment the cacao profile without tasting of sugar. The combination of size, texture, and taste make this bar quite satiating after only a few pieces.

Minor complaint, but the opening of the paper package feels like a rich experience, only to reveal a tightly clung thin foil wrapper that’s reminiscent to chocolate candy bars. It was a bit cumbersome to peel off without creating a foil shard dump. Minor, but it’s the only component that feels cheap about this bar!

Personally enjoyed this chocolate base more than comparable brands. It’s great quality chocolate for your buck and I’d recommend Alter Eco in general, especially that Brown Butter bar!!! Their Coconut Clusters are delicious too. I’ll be looking out for the 90% cocoa bar to try.

REVIEW: Endangered Species Chocolate Panther 88% Cocoa

Ingredients: Bittersweet Chocolate (Chocolate Liquor, Cane Sugar, Soy Lecithin, Vanilla).

I’m running out of common chocolate brands to try, so finally giving Endangered Species Chocolate a chance.

This heavy chocolate bar is roughly three millimeters in height and sectioned off into 15 pieces. It makes a loud snap and takes a little arm work to break. The chocolate takes some time to begin melting in your mouth, but becomes relatively creamy once doing so. Because it takes a while to break down, there’s almost a chewy or gumminess to it? It’s a minor observation, but it’s not an immediate melt-in-your-mouth chocolate, unless you’re patient enough to allow that.

The 88% cocoa flavor has two phases: The beginning tastes lightly sweet and a tinge fruity, then it finishes as a mildly bitter vanilla. My first thought was that it’s like a more sophisticated and higher quality Dove Chocolate (my favorite chocolate candy growing up). My other thought was that it reminds me of a brownie. For 88% cocoa content, this tasted sweeter compared to other brands. I like to think I’m accustomed to much darker chocolates and didn’t find this too intense, bitter, or bold to eat, whatsoever. Certainly had no problem eating half of it in a sitting!

For a lower price tier chocolate, it was honestly better than I expected. I’m not sure I’d go out of my way to buy it again, but I personally preferred it over brands like Theo (meh flavor) and Taza (stoneground gritty chocolate ain’t my style). More importantly, hopefully your chocolate habits are helping out these animals somehow.

Purchased mine at Key Foods on sale for $3 (my Key Foods is very overpriced lol) and these chocolate bars tend to be $2.50 – $3.50 MP. At this price point, it tastes pretty solid and I’d think many folks would enjoy the Endangered Species Chocolate line. The animal themes are fun too!

REVIEW: Alter Eco Organic Dark Chocolate Seeds & Salt Coconut Clusters

Ingredients: *Organic dried coconut flakes, organic 70% dark chocolate (*cacao beans, *raw cane sugar, *cocoa butter), organic tapioca syrup, organic tapioca flour, *organic coconut oil, water, *organic coconut sugar, French sea salt, natural flavors, vitamin E (for freshness), monk fruit extract. (*Fair Trade Certified™ by Fair Trade USA, total 87.4% Fair Trade ingredients)

Coconut and chocolate seems generally hard to mess up, but these are even better than expected.

My bag has about 40% intact chunks and the rest is crumbles–the unfortunate reality of bark-like snacks. The “clusters” naming makes me think they’d be random, misconfigured ball shapes, but they’re just really thick bark pieces. They’re about four millimeters high and aren’t as fragile as they appear since they break off in pretty clean, dense chunks. It’s a hard, but manageable, crunchy texture that becomes pleasantly chewy when the coconut breaks down.

There’s about 70% coconut to 30% chocolate, so the flavor is mostly of pleasing, lightly toasted coconut. The 70% dark chocolate tastes good, isn’t overly sweet at all, and compliments the coconut divinely without stealing the show. Any seed flavor is mild since there’s few pumpkin and sunflower seeds sprinkled throughout. They take up roughly a quarter of the bark if I’m being generous. There’s a delectable caramel-like undertone throughout. Lastly, this has the perfect amount of salt to achieve an excellent salty and sweet balance.

With some imagination, they’re kind of like healthier Girl Scout Samoas. It takes no effort to eat the whole bag in one sitting, and I’d definitely recommend these any macaroon/bark/coconut/chocolate aficionados. I’m sure the other flavors are equally as delicious since they’re not too varied in ingredients. Purchased these for $4.79 at Westerly Market, which seems to be the average MP.

REVIEW: Theo Black Rice Quinoa Crunch 85% Dark Chocolate

Ingredients: Cocoa beans*+, cane sugar*+, puffed black rice*, puffed quinoa*+, cocoa butter*+, ground vanilla bean*+. (*organic, +fair trade)

This chocolate bar is a thick, heavy mass with crunchy, audible puffed grains layered throughout the entire bar. It’s certainly the sophisticated adult-version of Crunch candy bars, but could also bring similar feelings of eating covered wafer snacks.

The chocolate itself is silky smooth, and each black rice or quinoa piece catches your attention because they’re incredibly satisfying to bite into. The best part about this chocolate bar is that EVERY bite has this delectable texture contrast.

The bar flavor evolves about halfway, starting with an subtle sweetness which eventually mellows out. Predominantly in the first half, there’s a unique, malted, cereal-like, nutty flavor throughout. The 85% chocolate doesn’t have much of a distinguishable flavor, but tastes generically dark without unappealing bitterness. Any vanilla is incredibly subtle towards the end.

Overall, I enjoyed this bar and would recommend it to any dark chocolate fans who enjoy crunch, and/or enjoy cereal-like flavors.

Personally, I might pass on other Theo Chocolate bars because the chocolate itself was just alright for me, but this shouldn’t be a problem for most folks. Based off the thoughtfulness of this bar, I’d bet Theo Chocolate is probably one of the better brands existing, relative to competitors. Purchased this on sale at Whole Foods for $3, but it is generally sold for $4 MP.