Chocion Chocolate + Coffee for National Coffee Day

September 29th is National Coffee Day in the USA, England, Canada, Sweden. Ethiopia, and Malaysia. I know that we just had a Chocion feature article two weeks ago but today I want to look at two of their bars that also have coffee in them. These are the Zartbitter (dark chocolate) Irish Coffee and the Vollmilch (milk chocolate) Cappuccino bars. Look at the photo to the left. Can you tell which bar is which? Of course you can? The difference between the milk and dark chocolate is obvious as soon as you unwrap the gold foil (silver color inside). Since I, your Chocolate Priestess, do not like coffee, I hand these off to three others to test out under my watchful eye.  This review is a summary of their opinions. Chocion sent us these two bars in exchanged for an honest review; we received no further compensation for this article.

The Cappuccino Truffle Bar has 38% cocoa solids, 13% cream, 5% Mokka Liqueur, and 1% cappuccino. The coffee scent is very light with a light liqueur essence as well. It looks a lot like chocolate melted over fudge once you bite or cut off a piece. The cover coating of chocolate makes a very soft snap when you take a bite but the inside is fairly soft so there is not further noise made when you chew. This had a good balance of cream milk chocolate with a very light coffee liqueur flavor that one of of our testers described as an alcoholic cappuccino. One of our testers really doesn't like milk chocolates but she really thought the light coffee and Mokka Liqueur enhanced this so that she could really enjoy it.  All three recommended it saying it was a subtle, well-balanced bar.

The Irish Coffee Truffle Bar has 62% cocoa solids, 13% cream, 5% whiskey, and 0.3% coffee. This split our trio of testers; two wouldn't recommend it but one would. Why the split? The two who didn't like it pointed out a sort of graininess between the dark chocolate shell and the truffle filling that our other tester said that didn't detract from what she liked about the bar. All three said they could smell the whiskey as well as a light coffee scent. Flavor is where biggest difference between testers was most prominent for this bar. One tasted more of the whiskey, another that the coffee flavor was strongest, while the third thought it was balanced. Think about it for a moment. If you don't like whiskey or love whiskey, if you don't like dark chocolate or love it, all of these factors will impact your reception of this bar.

My testers took a break and cleansed their palates before this second bar so I think these differences are a great example of how the individual plays a strong role in the reception of chocolate. What you like may not be what I like or your partner likes. Instead of saying "no" to any one type of chocolate or even an entire brand of chocolate, try a little bit of a wide variety to learn what you like. Chocion is a very wide variety of bars now. This also means that if you have tried these bars, you need to leave us a comment and let us know if you agree or disagree with our testers and why. Only by sharing our experiences with you and you with us, can we all find great chocolate.