Once again, a bar of chocolate's label asks me to buy it for the sake of the poor farmers. Plus, the wrapper could be made from an old grocery sack and it tells you right on it that the rough little tie that holds the flap closed is made from recycled burlap cacao bag. I think the assumption is that buying a bar like this practically removes existing guilt from you like doing penance.

I'm for helping people out as much as the next guy - and I recycle too. But, for me, a chocolate purchase is about taste and I've generally had bad luck, taste-wise, with chocolate sold with those pitches.

Fortunately, there is no need to buy this chocolate only out of first world guilt or pity. I really liked this bar. It was delicious. A very balanced, sophisticated, and pleasing set of tastes. The pitch should instead be, 'buy this bar because all the other dark chocolate bars surrounding me on the shelf are so vastly inferior'. That's how much I like this bar. The karmic reduction is just a bonus.

The packaging says for me to expect hints of 'molasses and sharp stone fruit'. I didn't get the molasses at all. But, I guess 'sharp stone fruit' could be a citrusy plum - and that would work for me. I sometimes thought I got just a tad of strawberry too - and blackberry. But, only in small amounts.

This bar was a happy surprise and I'll be buying more of them. I hope the next one is this good. I give this one a solid 8. It was bought at Whole Foods on 05/18/15. The expiration date on the packaging looks hand-stamped and is smudged. It could be 04/17/16. But, the '16' might be '18' instead (or '10', for that matter, but that wouldn't make sense...).

Ohhh "malted barley." Nice way of saying MSG.

 

Get your facts straight. MSG is monosodium glutamate, a 'free glutamic acid' which is artificially and chemically produced outside of the body. Malted barley is barley that has been malted, developing the enzymes required for modifying the grains' starches into various types of sugar.