Organic Chocolate Revisited

After my rant about Dagoba (as you may remember I was not only disappointed in their chocolate but also in the preachy save-the-earth messages in their wrappers), I was contacted by Leann VanDerHeyden, the Marketing Director at Lake Champlain Chocolates (LCC). She asked if I would consider giving their organic chocolate a try.

I'm no fool - I didn't miss a beat and told her heck, yes! I would love to! Who turns down the chance to try new chocolates? She sent a box of goodies right out and told me to be honest - they wanted the feedback. Okay.....here goes!!

We'll start with these - they are a great size - about 1.25 inches by 1.25 inches. A perfect tasting square. The problem with a lot of chocolates is you have to buy a whole big bar just to try a new flavor. These are also very elegant, there's a lovely gold embossed wrapper around each one. No preachy messages. And the LCC cool little deer logo is stamped on each one - a nice touch. You could leave these squares on pillows in fancy hotels. Okay - so they have the aesthetics down.

Now, let me tell you how they taste:

Um....they're pretty damn good! There are (were) four flavors in the box. Let's start with my favorite - milk chocolate, sea salt and almonds. Love it!!! I love almonds anyway, but the touch of salt really makes this different than the typical bar. Excellent. I ate all of these first.

The other thing I liked about these was the chocolate was very creamy and smooth. Now those of you who like their chocolate so dark it's like chewing cocoa nibs, this may not be for you. The dark is only 55% cocoa content (but that's dark enough for me!).

My second favorite is the dark chocolate spicy Aztec. These are spicy - but the cayenne pepper is perfectly balanced with the cinnamon, so it's sweet. Some similar bars go too heavy on the pepper. They also have pumpkin seeds in them which I also like

The milk chocolate and dark chocolate square are also delish. The dark has no bitter aftertaste, the milk is smooth and creamy. And hey - they're organic! Forget Dagoba, you want to try organic chocolate, go with Lake Champlain http://www.lakechamplainchocolates.com/

We'll talk more about Lake Champlain Chocolates tomorrow.