Hold the Press!

Last week I reviewed a sample of Tcho's "Fruity" chocolate. Since then I received a sample of their "Nutty" flavor and need to add our review to give you a better picture of the three types. Contrary to its name, Nutty, the chocolate does not contain any nuts. In fact, the only difference between the varieties, as far as I can discern, is the source of the cacao bean. The other ingredients listed on all three packages are the same. I'm sure the relative amounts of the other ingredients are different between the types as they have different textures and hardness.

We first sampled Nutty then compared it to Fruity and Chocolatey. We both had similar impressions. Nutty has a very intense bittersweet chocolate aroma and flavor, much more than the others. We didn't notice any nutty flavor or aroma like one would eating a chocolate bar with almonds. This is in contrast to the hint of raisin in Fruity and the fudgey taste of Chocolatey. Nutty's texture was much more firm and brittle compared to the others. All three were at room temperature, so that was not a factor. The smaller squares of Nutty didn't break off along the indentations of the larger piece as one would expect; it pretty much broke where my fingers were grabbing it. Fruity was the least firm, breaking off cleanly at the indentations.

Of the three, our taste preference is Nutty - we just love the stronger, more intense flavor, then Chocolatey, and Fruity last. Texture preference goes to Chocolatey, then Nutty, and Fruity last.

This kind of taste testing, sampling similar varieties of the same food, is very enjoyable. I do the same with beer occasionally. Its interesting to see how similar or dissimilar a single variety of food is when made by either one manufacturer or several. Sometimes when I go to a new brewpub I'll order the sampler of all the different beer that they brew to see if they all taste the same or if they really worked on perfecting the various styles. Similarly, sampling the same type of beer, wheat beers for example, from a variety of breweries really brings out how they each interpreted that style.

Which reminds me, I should have paired the Nutty chocolate with a good porter. Back to the table...