Finally I found a chocolate that the whole family can agree on:
The Tea Room Jasmine Green Tea Chocolate

The Tea Room Jasmine Green Tea Chocolate

Usually the dark chocolate lovers find milk chocolate too sweet. And the milk chocolate lovers find the dark chocolate too…well…dark. (They’re the ones that go around chanting “N-E-S-T-L-E-S makes the very best CHOC-LATE” repeatedly…. while grinning incessantly… while I playfully plug my ears and chant “I-can’t-hear-you”. I don’t deny eating Nestles chocolate, but as for it being the very best, don’t get me started!)

If my chocolate photography session is going swimmingly I may open up to 3 chocolates in a single afternoon, which ends up being the cause of some confusion regarding everyone keeping track of their favorite. “I think the one I liked the best was the one that had the stuff in it, not the one that was darker and not the one you said was made in….wherever.” (I know. They’re very specific.)

In the case of The Tea Room Jasmine Green Tea Chocolate I received immediate feedback that this one was GOOD.  Jasmine tea and tangerine essence are an excellent flavor pairing; the chocolate itself was admittedly very sweet (which can be a nice change when tasted alongside two 70% chocolates)!  It’s not handcrafted bean to bar chocolate (unless I read all the wrong resources online), but on the other hand it wasn’t as pricey either.

Note: I purchased mine from iherb.  On Amazon it is only available in packs of 12 … too many at once for me! A month or so after tasting it I did go ahead and get a second bar and learned I am just as unspecific as the rest of the family.  “So what is this?” “Oh it’s that one you liked a few weeks ago.”  “I liked several a few weeks ago!”

Good point.

Where has TCHO chocolate been all my life?  (Or, rather, since I’ve been around much longer than TCHO, let me rephrase: Where have I been all of TCHO’s life?)

Seriously, one bite of TCHO’s lush, creamy SeriousMilk Milk Chocolate “Cacao” was enough to make me realize that TCHO has done their homework on how to pair the few standard ingredients that make up milk chocolate, in order to come up with such an extraordinary bar.  I have been eating milk chocolate wrong all my life; THIS is how it’s done.Seriously TCHO Milk Chocolate Still Life Gallery Photo

Curiosity aroused, I discovered:

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70%. 60%. 51%.

No, I’m not watching the battery on my phone being drained at an alarming rate of speed.

Instead, those are just a few of the many cocoa percentages of the dark chocolate bars that have found their way to my house recently.  (I’d name names, but the safety of future posts would be put at risk.  There are chocolates counting on me for their own special moment in the spotlight.)

Dark chocolate is delicious.  It is also touted as being healthy (in small amounts).  The varieties available are practically endless, due to both the varying flavor of the cacao beans being used and the creative use of inclusions.  (Chocolate with lavender, anyone?)  We’ve sampled several new dark chocolates, but, in the midst of it all, it was a welcome change to try something lighter: The Tea Room Black Masala Chai Chocolate

gallery_photo_black_masala_chai_tea_room_chocolate

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If I were keeping a list of the chocolates that I’ve never tried (or never even heard of until the past few months), the list would be quite extensive.   The variety of chocolates available worldwide is literally mind boggling.

My goal is to, slowly but surely, make a dent in the list of chocolates I haven’t tried…thereby lengthening the list of chocolates I have tried.

One of the latest brands that made it from one list to the other is NewTree Chocolate.  NewTree Lime Granola Chocolate is now on my list of favorites, my list to try again, and my list to spread the word about….’cause it’s DELICIOUS.

NewTree Lime Granola Chocolate

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