Dark chocolate bars: Tasting test

2023 Author: Cody Thornton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:20

If regarding the chocolate as connoisseurs, what is granted on special occasions, we have already given with our Last Judgment, today we return to the pop area par excellence with the tablets of dark chocolate of supermarket.

We have chosen 5 popular brands, opting for a percentage that is not too low, but not too high: a Christian Democrat 70%.

In the style of ours Tasting test we have poked our noses into consumer and mid-range chocolates. Whoever wonders which one to buy when the desire arises is satisfied.

CONTENDENTS:

Perugina - Extra Dark Black 70%

Black Elk - Costa Rica organic extra dark chocolate 71%

Lindt - Excellence Noir intense 70%

Novi - Black Black 70% Ghana

Ritter Sport - Extra dark 73%

The test was carried out blindly.

CRITERIA:

Consistency

Taste

In this case, the visual aspect was not taken into consideration (some of the formats were branded or in any case recognizable, so the tasting took place literally "blindly").

# 5 RITTER SPORT

Pack of 100 grams, ingredients: [Cocoa 73% minimum] cocoa paste (of which 40% fine cocoa), sugar, cocoa butter, anhydrous butter, vanilla extract.

Judgment: it will not satisfy that "desire for good" you feel when dark chocolate calls you

Packaging: plasticized packaging in square shape, black softens the classic portable packaging with the "product of the year" logo on display (every year I wonder who, why, how, but then I never go into detail)

Consistency: compact and crunchy (melts easily in the mouth)

Taste: the taste is muffled, let's say compressed and with a sweetish tendency that tires quickly. Do you remember the chocolate coins from the befana's stocking that didn't sparkle with an addictive flavor? Here, more or less.

Price: € 1.29 (per kg € 12.90)

In short: not convincing at all

VOTE: 4 1/2

# 4 NOVI

75 gram pack, ingredients: Ghana cocoa, sugar, cocoa butter, emulsifier: soy lecithin, natural vanilla extract. Minimum 70% cocoa.

Judgment: the sweetest of the “bitter” chocolates tasted, contradiction in terms

Packaging: cardboard packaging and aluminum cover, with references to the ancient geographical maps of black Africa. In short, an Indiana Jones packaging

Consistency: compact and crunchy (melts easily in the mouth)

Taste: the taste is rather bland, with a barely perceptible acid note. Overall, the flavor is too sweet for extra dark chocolate and leaves a metallic touch on the finish

Price: € 1, 59 (per kg € 21, 20)

In short: Swiss? No, not really …

VOTE: 5-

# 3 BLACK ALCE

100 gram pack, ingredients: cocoa mass *, cane sugar * (28%), cocoa butter *, vanilla pods *. *Biological

Judgment: not bad, but it could be better. A little "short" and vanilla

Packaging: cardboard packaging and aluminum cover, sober and minimal graphics with warm and comforting colors designed specifically for organic lovers, without sequins and various doodles

Consistency: compact and crunchy (melts easily in the mouth)

Taste: first and foremost there is the bitter taste of dark chocolate as you expect, but the more it melts, the more a certain slightly intrusive vanilla sweetness emerges. It doesn't stay on the palate very long, it wears off pretty quickly

Price: € 2, 35 (per kg € 23, 50)

In short: coitus interruptus

VOTE: 5 1/2

# 2 LINDT

Pack of 100 grams, ingredients: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, natural Bourbon vanilla beans. Cocoa: 70% minimum.

Judgment: a dark chocolate that doesn't go too thin

Packaging: cardboard packaging and aluminum cover, pompous graphics with golden inserts to underline that here we have the average pussy line by Lindt

Consistency: compact and crunchy (melts easily in the mouth)

Taste: a strong taste, with a rather marked acidity, a bitterness that "hits you in the head" and a good long persistence. On the finish there are fruity memories

Price: 1, 99 € (per kg € 19, 90)

In short: can dark chocolate also be elegant? Yes it could but in this case it's good but rather rude

VOTE: 6

# 1 PERUGINA

Pack of 100 grams, ingredients: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, sunflower lecithin emulsifier, flavorings. Cocoa: 70% minimum.

Judgment: deserves more than enough, but nothing that makes you cry for a miracle

Packaging: cardboard packaging and aluminum cover, sinuous and rich graphics

Consistency: compact and crunchy (melts easily in the mouth)

Taste: complex and "alive", with a pungent bitterness but without being intrusive, tasty but with a slightly short finish, in short, not like those chocolates that asphalt your mouth for a good hour and remain in love with it for a week.

Price: € 1.39 (€ 13.90 per kg)

In short: "Almost, almost" … "even if"

VOTE: 6 1/2

THINGS YOU LEARN FROM THIS TASTE TEST

We've learned that sometimes bitter chocolate isn't all that bitter, and that this unexpected sweetness isn't good news.

Then we understood that the percentage of cocoa will have its importance, but even 70% has its thousand ways of being expressed, and no one resembles the other.

Finally, we learned that the persistence of chocolate on the palate, the so-called "final", is the main component in forming our judgment, even if only because it is an extension of the somewhat erotic pleasure that chocolate gives to all of us.