Chocolate and Love Coffee

You may or may not know that cacao was once drunk as a stimulant: xocolatl (literally translating to 'bitter water'). From Mesoamerica, this prized drink travelled to Europe. Though as the sugar trade kicked in, and with the Europeans enjoying their sweet delicacies, they began sweetening up their cocoa drink, and adding milk. And so, one thing led to another and chocolate desserts, confections and the bar were born

Today, coffee is our liquid stimulant. It's enjoyed bitter. Yet chocolate, if bitter, will often provoke a grimace. And why is this? It's because coffee and chocolate serve different purposes. We've conditioned ourselves into thinking chocolate needs to be a sweet treat, expecting it to be an indulgence, whereas coffee ... it's just, you know, 'coffee culture' (note there are some exceptions: coffee & walnut cake, tiramisu)

Chocolate and Love's dark chocolate Coffee bar was of 55% cocoa. It's a low %, but I guess sweeter chocolate should pair better with bitter coffee, according to that incoherent hypothesis above of: chocolate should not be bitter

The aroma was just luscious. It was coffee, creamy, vanilla, chocolatey, a sense of acidity, and when ignoring the coffee there was suggestion of a somewhat complex chocolate

The taste was bitter, potent coffee, and yet very sweet. The coffee gave earthiness, the chocolate had vanilla and caramel flavours. This was a real bitter, sweet chocolate. The texture and melt was smooth, and the finish was the last few sips of a cappuccino, with the Demerara sugar still sitting at the bottom of the cup

Overall, an incredible chocolate, though I fault it in being a little too sweet. But I like Chocolate and Love, and their ethics. Their chocolate is organic, fairly traded, and 100% traceable (all to the single cooperatives! The cocoa beans from Peru and The Dominican Republic; the sugar from Costa Rica and Paraguay; and the vanilla is Madagascan)