Short review....GAH!!

Nope...not a MEH, but a full fledged GAH!!! DO NOT WANT ANYMORE!!


Supplement Trade Post: 90% of a Lindt 99% Cacao "chocolate" bar. Will trade for belly button lint.

Ok...I will be more specific...Undersweet, extremely bitter, grainy/powdery. Does liquify on your tongue nicely, but lacks any kind of mouth "feel" that should be intact, due to half the volume being fat. 11 grams of saturated out of 20 total.

Just an overall disappointment that COULD have been masterful, IMO.

Makes sense... 99% cacao = not much room for anything else like sweeteners, etc...

Dsade,

I've had really good....think it was 75% or 85%, but is it really possible to make something that strong that tastes OK?

I would say Sucralose. You have 600 times (per weight) the sweetness of sugar, and could therefore increase the sweetness with what little NON cacao volume is left.

I liked the 85% quite a bit...the 70-75% are VERY good for dark chocolates.

The problem with pure cacao is that it tastes like cacao...

I always go with 75 - 85% Lindt makes excellent chocolate and with that high content of cacao it has low sugar and some fiber

The 70% is good. Why even bother with 99%? Just buy some cocoa and you can have 100% for a small fraction the price.

shave it up with a chefs knife, melt it in the microwave, and add sweetener of choice to it. Pour onto wax or parchment paper and let cool. Wont look the same, but should fix your problem if you want to go through the trouble.


And yeah, I think you're running into the nature of the beast. Going that strong is practically eating the nibs, which are definitely an acquired taste. I like bitter stuff a lot, and cacao that strong is too much for me.

I hate chocolate, but figure for the health benefits I would try to learn to like it. I started with 50-60% bars and worked my way up to a 100% bar. The 100% bar was barely edible, but I managed it down. Disappointingly,I didn't find any type of chocolate that interested me, though I love the shit with Peanut Butter.

Simpler, do what I've done, take unsweetned cocoa powder, add to water + pinch sweetner of choice (I like white powder version stevia).

Send it to me, I think I will love it

I like 75%, 85% is too much solo unless I have something else with it (fruit, cheese, etc)

There are some high% chocolates that are really good apparently, but they are not your average brands.

Ah sorry.. Yeah, thats a good idea if you just want the cocoa without dorking around with chocolate.. But, I meant getting some use out of the rest of D Sades chocolate bar...

I've become a big fan of Dagoba, also the dark chocolate from Aldi's in the xmas red wrapper is pretty good and has one of the best textures I've come across.

I've definitely started to detest the cheap stuff and all the candy bars more widely available.

There's an import food store in Chapel Hill with a wall of bars a good 30 foot long broken up by country of origin, good stuff.

Two words: "El Rey".

+ 500 zillion.

Just make up some oatmeal and sprinkle unsweetened cocoa over it. Tastes really decent and oatmeal is loaded with goodies. It has soluble fiber which we all need. Plus cocoa is loaded with antioxidants. Its cheap and you don't have to pay an arm and a leg for either one.

I have always been a fan of scharffen berger, citrus , plums, cherries, whatever you like on the front of your palate they have a variety to supply it.

I am a big fan of cocoa. Two things I do with it are to add it to my shakes (I like them really chocolatey), and to my coffee. Dark chocolate protein shakes are pretty awesome, although they look kind of funky.

Actually, with the right protein (thinking something like Substance Vanilla Bean) this sounds pretty damn good.

Blender up this cacao bar to get a bunch of nice slivers...mmmm.

Good call.

Theo makes a 91% cacoa bar that is simply incredible but runs 7 bones a bar.

Dolfin makes an 88% that is smoother than just about anything for only 3 bones a bar.

I love dark chocolate. Girlfriend bought be a grab back for Christmas

I had some 85% the other day with half a bottle of chardonnay... was delicious.

Stuffed my stocking with the 85% bar, as I couldn't find the 99% one. Promised myself I'd have only one square this morning, but ate the whole thing. Heavenly.

I have really shifted my taste away from the Milk Chocolates, and towards the high-end darks.

Dark chocolate is definitely where it's at.

For sure. I think it's the "grown up" taste

Dark chocolate > milk chocolate
Dark beer > light beer
Red wine > white wine (although I still have trouble with this one).

The powder works well in chili.

Am I the only one who think that stuff tastes like crap? And I LOVE vanilla.

Could add cheese to that list as well.

Jeffrey Dahmer: dark man-meat > light man-meat

How did I miss this, chocolate is my first and best love? I'm slipping....

Dagoba is heaven. Lindt 70% is lovely, but the darker ones, though decent, aren't as good imo. I love a brand called Poulain for its outstanding 86% that somehow tastes better than Lindt's 75%.

Oh and btw, naturally I have no idea where the study is, but if anyone is combining chocolate with dairy thinking they're still getting the antioxidants, there's a damn good chance they're wrong. A study a year or so back showed that eating milk chocolate and also eating dark chocolate with a glass of milk inhibited antioxidant levels in blood compared to eating pure dark. So unless the inhibition was a delayed response, dairy appears to impair absorption. My theory is that taking chocolate (and possibly other acid-based foods that are high in antioxidants, like berries, tomatoes etc) with vinegar would balance out the dairy. This is pure speculation. But it's also supported by the fact that untreated cocoa powder (ie it hasn't had alkali added to it) is higher in antioxidants than 'dutched' cocoa.

Off topic, but I've also been wondering, since we know vinegar slows gastric emptying, and we know certain high fat foods such as cheese are actually also relatively high GI, does this mean that their GI could also be linked to their PH levels?

Just tried Cocoa Camino's 87% yesterday. Is meh.

So it appears that 85% might be highest for a tasty/chocolatey dessert type taste.

I urge you to find/try Dolfin's 88%...it's the smoothest 80%+ I've ever had and not dry like so many high % bars tend to be.

Who sells it?

I think anything higher than 85% is verging on too bitter (but I'm interested in the 88% you mentioned Redsky). That said, a 75% can taste worse than an 85% imo, depending on the quality of the beans and processing. Bean quality and processing really become key with the higher cocoa content.

Dunno if this has been mentioned or not, and I'm not going to look back through, but Whole Foods sells these chocolate bars that have a variety of animals on them that have a variety of fruits and whatnot in them.

Anyway, long story short, I think it's the bat one that has dark chocolate (forget the %) with cocao nibs in it. Good times. The chocolate is sweet enough to offset the raw nib bitterness.

Holy Cocoa-bits, that sounds pretty good. You say the Bat, Man?

The bat one is great with the nibs. Those are the Endangered Species bars. A portion of each purchase is supposedly donated to rain forest protection. They're not organic but they're very good.

The panther is a high cocoa content, and also very good.

That's the one. It leaps over other chocolate bars in a single bound. It's super, man.

I've bought mine at the local whole foods/central market. It's also fairly easy to find on the nets:
http://www.chocosphere.com/Html/Products/dolfin.html

Not a total aside, but chocolove bars are very good for their price point and even have a single origin bar variety.

Speaking of single origin, WalMart sells Lindt bars for cheap (less than 2 bones cheap) and they also have Lindt's single origin bar. The ecuadorian bar is fantastic!

hachez makes the smoothest extra dark bar that i know of (i have tried many)...

the hachez 88% bar comes in a red package and is widely available and relatively cheap at about $3 a bar.

i like the lindt 85%, but only when i crumble it into yogurt, kefir, etc. the hachez bar is far smoother and easier to take on it's own in my opinion.

http://www.amazon.com/Hachez-88%25-Premier...r/dp/B0009Z9FFW

Ate 3/4 a bar last night. Was pretty good on it's on. The dryer your mouth the better the flavor, ironically. Most foods it's the opposite. It's suggested to enjoy with red wine. I didn't have a bottle open, and I felt guilty opening a new one. I'll wait for a glass of merlot to enjoy the remainder this weekend.

I wouldn't eat it every day, but I'll be keeping some in the house from now on.

I DO miss throwing a small square of dark chocolate in my mouth, then smoking a fresh cigarette, though...mmmmm.

Not sure if you noticed this or not, but after eating more than one serving of very dark chocolate about 6 hours later and I drop some of the most foul smelling turds ever to be created by any one or any thing. Alive or dead.

Oh, we noticed alright. I could smell your package from here. Al Gore is looking for you.

Has anyone seen Acticoa on the market? Its methods of processing are supposed to preserve polyphenol content of chocolate.
Similarly, what about Cocoapro which is used in CocoaVia?

D Sade...it sounds like you're gonna keep the chocolate. Damn, I love bitter dark chocolate and I even had 30 kilos of lint ready to ship to you.

One thing I like about lindt is the little wrapped squares you can get. I used to work with this stuff daily bulk lindt/lindor. Yup 85% is much easier on the pallet, but those little slivers of 99 back a punch and leave you with what you paid for, not wanting more. Not many things I can have a bit of and say I'm satisfied. Lindt keep up the good work.

As for the lindor balls, GAH!!!! They were good at first but when you are surrounded by chocolate daily. YUCK way to sweet, soft, melts in your mouth, tons of flavour... Uhhhhhhhh to much of a good thing isn't good (like the dark don't eat too much). Also goes for the flavoured lint/lindor bars way to sweet, certain types of liquid fruit flavouring shouldn't be mixed with chocolate. As for the pistachio bars - good, very good sellers.

cote d'or makes some nice bars, they have a limited line up year round but come out with some nice additions seasonally. There was a nice Italian chocolate I tried... Name reminded me of Italian lawn bowling.. damn starts with a B, brocheli ?? meh whatever.