Sunday, August 6, 2017

Marginally Disappointing, Green & Black's Pure Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel Chocolate Bars Do Not Live Up!


The Good: Good flavor, Decent ingredients, Good corporate ethics
The Bad: Expensive, Not at all indicative of a true caramel flavor
The Basics: Green & Black's Pure Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel chocolate bars are more like chocolate toffee bars than salted caramel bars.


I have been enthusiastically going through a little slipcase of chocolate bars I recently got in. The packaging for the Green & Black's chocolate bars instantly intrigued me when I saw them at my local discount store. Tonight, I decided to take a break from my work to enjoy the Green & Black's Pure Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel chocolate bars from the slipcase of chocolate I bought. Unfortunately, the Green & Black's Pure Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel chocolate bars did not quite live up to my expectations or hopes for what a good caramel chocolate bar could be . . . especially for one with dark chocolate.

Basics

Green & Black's Pure Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel chocolate bars are one and three-eights inch by one and five-eighths inch rectangles of chocolate that are about three-sixteenths of an inch thick and connected side by side and in rows, to form a bar of ten segments. Each bar comes unified in a foil wrapper. The foil-wrapped chocolate bar is sealed in a cardboard package.

Each chocolate bar is sold in a way that it is easy to segment and control portions. In this form, the 3.17 oz. bar, the chocolate bar represents two and a half servings. Each bar appears solid (the Caramel flakes and sea salt are embedded, as opposed to acting like a filling) and is stamped with the Green & Black's logo.

Ease Of Preparation

These are candy, so preparing them is as simple as opening the cardboard and then opening the foil wrapper from around the actual chocolate. There is no trick to eating Green & Black's Pure Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel chocolate bars.

Taste

The Green & Black's Pure Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel bars have a strong cocoa aroma. The dark chocolate scent is pleasant and inviting for anyone who loves dark chocolate. The aromatic nature of the dark chocolate is uncommon, but very basic.

In the mouth, the Pure Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel bars are dry, with little salty flecks. The sea salt in the Green & Black's Pure Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel chocolate bars manifests more as a crispy texture than an actual flavor. There is almost no hint of caramel in the flavor palate of these candy bars.

The Green & Black's Pure Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel chocolate bar have a strong, dry aftertaste that lasts in the mouth for several minutes after the last of the bar is consumed.

Nutrition

These are candy, so they are not overly nutritious. That said, the Green & Black's Pure Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel chocolate bars are made of generally good ingredients, justifying their expense. The primary ingredients are bittersweet chocolate, organic raw cane sugar and organic glucose syrup. There is nothing unpronounceable in these candies.

A serving from the Green & Black's Pure Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel chocolate bars is considered four rectangles from the overall bar, which is a somewhat silly serving size for a bar that is segmented into ten pieces (as that means one whole bar is two and a half servings). From four squares, one takes in 210 calories, including 150 calories of fat. There are 70 mg sodium and 2 grams protein in each serving. There is a decent amount Iron (20% RDA) in each bar, but no significant quantities of any other major nutrients. The biggest nutritional detraction in the Green & Black's Pure Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel are the 17 grams of fat per serving and the 50% RDA of saturated fat that comes from the 10 grams of saturated fat!

These are not Vegan-compliant, nor are they recommended for anyone with a nut allergy as they are manufactured on machinery that processes tree nuts. They are not specifically marked as kosher (I'm not sure why), but Green & Black's uses sustainable cocoa farming for their cocoa, which is nice! They do have an allergy warning for wheat and milk.

Storage/Clean-up

The bars of these Green & Black's Pure Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel chocolate bars remain fresh for quite some time. The bars we picked up last month had an expiration date of October 10, 2017, though they will certainly not last that long as I will have consumed mine well before then! One assumes that if they are kept in a cool, dry environment they will not melt or go bad. It is hard to imagine just what it would take for these to go bad outside melting and refreezing.

As for cleanup, just throw the packaging away when you're done! These chocolate bars are made such that there is no real cleanup needed, unless one is eating them in a hot environment. Under that circumstance, it is likely one would need to wash their hands, though these bars do not melt as easily as cheap or milk chocolates. When this chocolate melts into most fabrics, it will stain.

Overall

Green & Black's Pure Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel chocolate bars are interesting, but lack a strong caramel flavor to sell the promise of the bars

For other Green & Black's chocolate reviews, please check out:
Pure Milk Chocolate Sea Salt chocolate bar
Pure Dark Chocolate Raspberry & Hazelnut chocolate bar
Pure Dark Chocolate Sea Salt chocolate bars

4/10

For other chocolate reviews, please visit my Chocolate Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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