Chocolate and Love

Chocolate and Love - Filthy Rich

Those who know me, know I love my chocolate especially good quality dark chocolate. I was contacted by the Chocolate and Love team recently and asked to taste their chocolate and potentially provide a review of their chocolate and maybe a recipe too. I was sent a link to the website which I checked out first before jumping at the chance of trying it, to see if I got a good gut feeling about doing it. I got a good feeling so jumped! I’ll be honest in my thoughts about it.

A little background: Chocolate and Love is an online shop selling really good quality chocolate, ethically sourced from small producers in Peru and the Dominican Replublic. Whilst they sell their own brand, they do sell others.

I was sent the following:

Orange Mantra – 65% Cocoa Solids

The first thing I noticed about this, compared to other flavoured dark chocolates, was a proper and natural taste of orange through the chocolate. It was mellow yet zesty and didn’t leave an odd after taste or bitterness in my mouth. The second thing I noticed was how the chocolate snapped and how it crumbled nicely in my mouth. I found myself eating a piece at a time, slowly and more measured that I usually eat good chocolate because I wanted to savour it and taste as much of the orange as possible. It was also a rather light chocolate to eat and didn’t leave me with that heavy or sikcly feeling. Really nice, more so as I’m not really a fan of orange flavoured chocolate.. but this is different

Filthy Rich Dark Chocolate – 71% Cocoa Solids

Filthy Rich… I like it already. 71%???… i like the extra 1% already. I received 2 bars of this. The first I ate. I love dark chocolate, but sometimes it can be too rich, too bitter or even to heavy – depending on the brand you buy. However Chocolate and Love’s Filthy Rich bar (I so love the name) was light, chocolatey, not bitter and had a really good texture to it. Like the orange mantra one, I found myself wanting to savour this. I single this point out as willingly savouring chocolate is something I do not do.. but honestly I actually felt good after eating it.. perhaps borderline euphoric..

I wanted to do a little comparision with a couple of other brands and so to be fair I roped in my wife and and my sister, both equally fussy about chocolate, for a little bit of a taste test… we tested it against had some Lindt 70% Dark, some Green & Black’s 70% Dark and also Divine 70% Dark for comparison. It really highlighted the differences, some really major ones, between the brands and also how taste can often be negatively affected when a major conglomerate takes a brand over. All three of us preferred Chocolate and Love over the others.. my sister by a long shot.

The rankings in terms of taste and overall chocolate pleasure:

1. Chocolate and Love
2. Lindt
3. Divine
4. Green & Blacks

With that in mind, I just had to use the last bar in a dessert. I usally use Lindt for this recipe so this was another interesting comparison for me… the recipe is for a dark chocolate olive oil mousse with smoked salt.

If, like me, you love your chocolate then this is one to keep in your cupboard… and share with others only if you like them enough..