Review: Chocolate & Love

Chocolate. One of the best inventions in the whole wide world. Everything about it is awesome, except the fact that as soon as I look at a bar, I instantly put on tons of weight. Nevertheless, there is no way I could give the bad boy up & frankly, who on earth could blame me?

When the opportunity to taste test several types of chocolate from Chocolate & Love came up, I just couldn’t say no… for the good of man-kind I had to do it, yes sir!

I was sent a package with 5 different types of Chocolate, I was instantly giddy from the excitment or erm… hard task of actually having to sit down & eat all this chocolate. Suprisingly, my mom nominated herself as a 2nd opinion… I wonder why!

So now the hard work started….

Filthy Rich– Made with premium cocoa from the Dominican Republic and Peru along with cane sugar from South America and a hint of vanilla, this bar of 71% organic extra dark chocolate is very intense. The aftertaste it left in our mouths was great, it was very smooth on your palette & this is coming from someone who has never really loved dark chocolate. From dark chocolate I’ve tasted before, they are usually very bitter which this was not & had to be one of my favourites from all I tried.

Orange Mantra– A bar of 65% dark chocolate combined with orange extract from cold pressing ripe peels in Italy giving the Orange Mantra a wonderful fresh orange flavour & smell. When we unwrapped this bar from it’s packaging, we were hit by the intense orange scent, which I love. The texture was very smooth, tasted amazing with the orange & was not at all bitter which made it a big thumbs up in my books.

Chocolate Tree Raspberry– This 74% organic extra dark chocolate is topped with dried raspberry pieces and handmade in Edinburgh. Unfortunately, I disliked this bar because of the sourness of the raspberries mixed with the bitterness of the chocolate. Both of us could only eat a few slices before putting it down. It’s the first time I’ve never finished chocolate & that’s sad because I tried so hard to like it.

Crushed Diamonds– 55% dark chocolate mixed with cocoa beans from Peru which are roasted & broken into small nibs giving it a crunchy texture. This was by far, my favourite chocolate bar I tried, once again the texture of the chocolate was great, the cocoa nibs an added bonus. The chocolate wasn’t bitter & a great idea for the future would be if the nibs came in different flavours such as orange & mint.

Pacari Chocolate Covered Guava– The title says it all, dried guava covered in dark chocolate. This was very suprising, I’ve never really tried Guava before & this was amazing! The mixture between the bitter dark chocolate & the sweet guava worked, complimenting eachother. Funnily enough, it was a little like eating a more exotic type of chocolate raisins & are a good size for snacking on.

So that was that…. Crushed Diamonds and Pacari Chocolate Covered Guava were my two favourites & would recommend them to anyone and everyone, especially dark chocolate n00bs! But… my tasting session didn’t end there. I decided that since I had tons of great quality chocolate, what better way than to combine it with something else I love; baking. I then created Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Dark Chocolate Frosting using a mixture of all the chocolate’s I tried then topped them with a square of Orange Mantra. I gave some to my mom & then took them into work for the guys I work with who loved them to bits & are now dying for more!

To find out more about Chocolate & Love, the chocolate club they run, to order exotic chocolates or just be nosy then click here and let your taste buds do the talking!