I just bought these yesterday on a whim because they are new and I thought I’m not getting enough dark chocolate in my life! I wasn’t thinking much about them but I quickly had to rush them to the top of my review list and get the word out about them!
These are Trader Joe’s Organic Stone Ground Mexican Style Dark Chocolate. They come in disc shape which is pretty typical for Mexican chocolates. Considering that Chocolate was first eating (or drunk as a drink) in what is now southern Mexico, you’d think there’d be more Mexican chocolates on the market. But the ancient Mayans and Aztec never really had anything like modern chocolate, they mainly made a drink out of it and it was Europeans that figured out how to make it solid by adding milk fat and sugar to it.
Enough of the history lessons… So what we have here are two packages of chocolate that are wrapped in the way that most Mexican chocolates seemed to be wrapped (at least from what I’ve seen out there). The first one is a 70% cacao dark chocolate and the 2nd one is the one the piqued my interest and that is a dark chocolate with salt and pepper. Mexican chocolates are know to usually have some type of spices. Many even have chili powder! Don’t knock it until you’ve tried them! They also typically have a more grainy texture than other chocolates. The 70% cacao chocolate actually has cacao nibs which are basically cacao that has not been milled into a paste. They can give chocolate a nice crunchy texture which I quite enjoy!
I really liked the deep, fruity, winey flavor of the 70% cacao chocolate and I found the it to be quite enjoyable! Trader Joe’s has so much dark chocolate these days, it’s hard to make a choice but you really can’t go wrong with this one.
It’s the Salt and Pepper one that I was apprehensive about. I’ve had soooo many dark chocolates with sea salt and I get the salty/sweet thing, but it’s not my cup of tea. But putting crushed black pepper in there is a stroke of genius! I’m sure Trader Joe’s didn’t invent this but I’ve never seen black pepper in chocolate before. But I shouldn’t find it that unusual considering that chili powder and cinnamon have been put into chocolate for ages. I really, really liked the Salt and Pepper in the chocolate. Not to over down and while you can taste both, they really don’t overwhelm in any way. I could barely stop eating these. I was just blown away by it!
I am going to rate the Trader Joe’s 70% Organic Stone Ground Dark Mexican Chocolate 9 Bells! Since I was so blown away by the Trader Joe’s Salt and Pepper Stone Ground Dark Mexican Chocolate I am going to give it a very rare 10 Bells! Run, don’t walk to your nearest Trader Joe’s for this right now!
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