Tcho

One of my best friends just came back from a trip to San Francisco and she brought back a sampler of "the best chocolate you'll ever have" as a souvenir. 

There's even a specific way to savour the chocolate: instead of popping it into your mouth and chewing, you're supposed to put the thin bar on your tongue and just let it melt...

 

Super cute right? 

   

I saw this little pamphlet after I finished all my chocolate. So I decided to compare notes to evaluate how effective my taste-buds are (I think I did okay...I had some problems differentiating between Peru and Madagascar chocolate)

First up: Classic Milk Chocolate. 

It was super smooth on my tongue and after an initial hint of bitterness, it just melted away into this sweet, rich smooth flavour. The slight caramel notes added depth to the chocolate. 

Second: Cacao Milk Chocolate

I thought the taste was bolder and stronger compared to the classic. It felt thicker and denser than the other milk chocolate and surprisingly it had less of a bitterness tang/aftertaste to it. 

Citrus Dark Chocolate

I didn't really get a citrus flavour from this chocolate contrary to the description on the package. I felt that this chocolate had a rich and heavy taste of the cocoa bean native to the region. It tasted like cocoa in a pure form. 

Fruity Dark Chocolate

I thought this chocolate was relatively mellow. Smooth, rich, a hint of sweetness and no bitter aftertaste at all (which was surprising since this is a dark chocolate).

Nutty Dark Chocolate

After brief initial bitterness, there was no bitter taste after that. It also had this fragrant, sweet and smooth nutty taste which was amazing since the chocolate didn't have nuts in it. This was probably my favourite dark chocolate of the batch. 

Chocolatey Dark Chocolate

This tasted like sweet thick fudge and there was definitely a very strong chocolate flavour. 

Overall: What a treat! It was such a great experience: the chocolates were enjoyable and it really tests your palate when you try to identify the differences in each type of pure chocolate. I found it amazing that there could be such variation in flavour between cacao beans grown in different regions around the world.  

Website: https://www.tcho.com/