A TCHO for the Holidays

Your Chocolate Priestess has gifted TCHO to others for birthdays and holidays and so I have high expectations for this new TCHO Mokaccino bar and the TCHO Hot and Cold Drinking Chocolate that we want to reveal to you all today, Sisters and Brothers.  To do this review I was helped by three of my Acolytes as well as a few other friends.  To the right you can see the new Mokaccino bars that TCHO has created so let's start with that.

As you know, I'm not a coffee or a tea fan; we have volunteers, called Acolytes, who help me with products that I simply could not be very objective about.  The Mokaccino bars were primarily tried by our two Mocha Acolytes, Tim and Charles, but they shared with some friends and family to get a wider view point of this new variety from TCHO.  The first thing everyone who tried these together on evening was that the look of the bar was disappointing give the image on the box.  Of course this bar (seen in second photo) look exactly like the other TCHO bars we've featured but I can understand the disconnect between the image and the actual product in terms of visuals.  When they tested the bars with their other senses their opinions changed.  Tim's View: Has a strong coffee scent, dark roast but not espresso.  Chocolate is very solid.  The flavor is very nicely blended, the chocolate flavor lingers afterwards to remain balanced in aftertaste.  It melts evenly in the mouth.  Charles's View: Nice rich chocolate brown color - quite even with a lightly embossed pattern over the grid of 9 squares. Breaking the squares is a nice solid snap. Upon opening the foil wrapper, you get a hint of the chocolate, mocha scent.  Deeper inhalation brings you nice strong, cocoa aroma with a slight hint of coffee. Nice solid feel to the bar.  Texture feels smooth, not waxy.  Feels reminiscent of "naturally-made" chocolate.  Initial first melting on tongue has nice mocha flavor - nicely balanced between coffee and cocoa.  Later notes of toffee and buttery flavor - buttery taste is accented with caramel and tastes like scorched sugar.  Very pleasant and continues for a time as the bar completes dissolving.  Very impressed overall with flavor and quality of the chocolate. 

The TCHO Hot and Cold Drinking Chocolate has four uses listed on the silver metal box it comes in: Shot, Hot Cocoa, Iced, and Mousse.  The Shot is really the way you combine the chocolate crumbles with water to make a very thick syrup that you then use to make the other three forms that you actually drink or eat.  I'm not sure how much this one container will make so since the weather has finally turned a bit cooler, let's follow the Hot Cocoa instructions.

As you can see the chocolate is indeed in the form of crumbled pieces. In fact as soon as I open the metal box I can smell the dark chocolate, I don't even need to open the bag because the essence is so strong.  I made this with 7oz of skim milk, the suggested range was 6-8 oz of milk.  The result was still a very dark and intense cup of hot chocolate, not cocoa, chocolate, Sisters and Brothers.  Let it cool to a  slightly warmer than lukewarm and you'll get the most pleasurable experience; too hot and it's just heat, too cool and the shot you made starts to pull away from the milk.

TCHO has done it again with these two products and they both earn Sacrament status for simple chocolate made in an honest way to create high quality cocoa buzz potential.  I consider these gifts for the darker chocolate lover in your life, one who can be satisfied with an intense experience without feeling the desire to just keep eating or drinking so that these last a little while.