Fair Trade Chocolate from The Organic Farm Shop
A taste test
Chocolate is something we know many people hold dear to their heart. And of course, our customers and supporters need to know when chocolate is Fair Trade. We stock many organic, Fair Trade chocolate bars and that begs a difficult question .. which one (two?) to choose? (Three?)
So we downed tools and did a chocolate taste test. Look, it's tough, but someone has to do these things.
Here's what we found (in no particular order):
Suma Fairly Traded Milk Chocolate Brazil Nuts
Chocolate brazils are a favourite of the tasting team so we boast more than a little expertise in this area, and we have to say, the chocolate is really excellent. It melts beautifully with a buttery, creamy texture with a separate feeling of cocoa powder.
There's a sense of a tang of cherry in there too, along with caramel and a coffee cream feeling. It's not overly sweet, very well balanced, and the brazils are exceptional quality too. This turned out to be one of our favourites from the test.
Traidcraft Organic Swiss Made Cappiccino Chocolate
This is a milk chocolate with a very sweet and sticky mocha filling along with ground hazelnut which provided wholesome satisfaction. There's a moreishness to this bar that we think is mainly down to the fact that 5% of this bar is ground coffee.
Green and Black's Maya Gold
Having chomped a few of these bars in our time, we admit we'd never really considered what we were eating in much detail. This is a dark, vegan chocolate with 55% cocoa solids. It breaks with a satisfying dull snap and is, they say, "infused with spices and a twist of orange". They don't quite tell us which spices, but the orange is definitely there in the taste, but there's quite a strong hint of black cherry in there too.
Traidcraft Organic Swiss Made Milk Chocolate
This is a quality, popular chocolate reminiscent of Galaxy. It's creamy, with a cocoa hit with hints somehow of warm ripe peach and creme caramel. A bar to bathe with.
Blakes Organic Chocolate
There are people who would have you believe that chocolate isn't 'proper' unless it contains 70% cocoa solids, so this is one of two 'proper' Fair Trade organic chocolates we stock. Of course, at that concentration it's a dark chocolate. It snaps well and has a good, strong dark chocolate taste that lasts into next week. Underneath: raspberry, blackberry, wine, and cherries in kirsch.
Organica Swiss Dark Chocolate Bar
The second 'proper' chocolate bar, dark with 71% cocoa solids and a good, dull snap. It contains 10% hazelnut that provide a breadth to the taste. This reminded us of Bourneville. It's on the edge of bitter, it provides a serious spike of cocoa .. this is the espresso of all the bars in this taste test. It's not a melting chocolate, there's a granularity to it (perhaps that's the hazelnuts).
Of all the bars, this set off the most interesting associations. If this were a colour scheme it would be crimson and deep steel blue. If it were a landscape it would be a sports field (there's a broad but low level hum of creamy, buttery, nuttiness) surrounded by poplars (the cocoa spike).
Among all that, there are cherries, peach and even coconut .. but we had to eat quite a bit of it to finally decide.
Fancy taking your own taste test?
Think you can improve on our descriptions? Fancy spending a beautiful night in tasting chocolate, either with friends or .. undulging on your own? Why not buy one of each and try it yourself. If you send in your comments, we may publish them here (and if you want a link to a site of your own, we may consider that too).
Remember, if you're in Pickering, Malton or Scarborough we'll deliver to you for free, if you're elsewhere in the UK we can post non-perishable items.