Favorite Quality Dark Chocolate to Eat

[annachan]

I am a big fan of Weiss (France). The dark chocolates are awesome but my all time favorite is one of the milk chocolates. I never thought milk chocolate can be so good. It has a hint of caramel finish to this chocolate.

The only issue is that Weiss isn't easy to find, especially in small quantities. I sometimes am tempted to order the 22lb bucket....

[Katie Meadow]

This is a wealth of information. I've never heard of many of these chocolates, and now I will keep my eye out for some of them. The Askinosie website is so cute it makes my teeth hurt. Amazing! Apparently they claim to be the only people in America who make a chocolate hazelnut spread from scratch. Now there's an idea for a great gift for several Nutella fans I know and love. My husband would save his judiciously for certain morning toast and my favorite twenty-something (besides my daughter) would probably go through the whole jar in less than 24 hours.

[ChrisZ]

Grrrr... I'm kicking myself for posting here earlier but then forgetting to mention the main thing I wanted to post about!

In terms of artisanal chocolate, a fantastic experience is to purchase a Pralus 'tasting pyramid' and work your way through all of the different bars. Pralus make a range of single-origin chocolates, which have the same recipe (proportions of cocoa/cocoa butter/sugar) but each bar uses beans from a different plantation. Their website mentions 18 different single-plantation bars, and the tasting pyramid is a collection of 10 of them.

It's amazing how different they are. Everything about the bars is the same except where the beans have come from. One bar will give you a burst of rich red berries, the next will be nutty, the next will be smoky and so on. It's a fantastic introduction to artisanal chocolate and it's no surprise that the Pralus tasting pyramid has formed the basis of chocolate tasting courses and blogs...

Well worth the effort to find.

[llc45]

Grrrr... I'm kicking myself for posting here earlier but then forgetting to mention the main thing I wanted to post about!

In terms of artisanal chocolate, a fantastic experience is to purchase a Pralus 'tasting pyramid' and work your way through all of the different bars. Pralus make a range of single-origin chocolates, which have the same recipe (proportions of cocoa/cocoa butter/sugar) but each bar uses beans from a different plantation. Their website mentions 18 different single-plantation bars, and the tasting pyramid is a collection of 10 of them.

It's amazing how different they are. Everything about the bars is the same except where the beans have come from. One bar will give you a burst of rich red berries, the next will be nutty, the next will be smoky and so on. It's a fantastic introduction to artisanal chocolate and it's no surprise that the Pralus tasting pyramid has formed the basis of chocolate tasting courses and blogs...

Well worth the effort to find.

Darn - now I am going to have to revise my X-mas wish list to include Claudio Corollo and the Pralus pyramid!

[DudeImHungry]

This is a wealth of information. I've never heard of many of these chocolates, and now I will keep my eye out for some of them. The Askinosie website is so cute it makes my teeth hurt. Amazing! Apparently they claim to be the only people in America who make a chocolate hazelnut spread from scratch. Now there's an idea for a great gift for several Nutella fans I know and love. My husband would save his judiciously for certain morning toast and my favorite twenty-something (besides my daughter) would probably go through the whole jar in less than 24 hours.

I got 2 jars of there hazelnut spread for my birthday. It is pretty good although I dont know if it is just me, but I dont get as much of the hazelnut taste in it but since it tastes awesome, it doesnt really bother me.

[mgaretz]

My favorite is the 88% cacao from Dolfin (Belgian). I also quite like the Chocolate Lover's Dark Bar from Trader Joe's - very floral.

[FataMagistra]

I agree with the poster who said that American-style chocolate seems grainier - and to my mind less creamy and satisfying of a mouthfeel - than European chocolate (at least at the mass market level; then again, I grew up on English Kit Kats, Swiss Nestle chocolates etc.)

FWIW in our house the daily chocolate favorites are Lindt and Trader Joe's Swiss chocolates. When we indulge and/or travel to Europe, we load up on Wittamer (from Brussels and only available in their shops there and the airport as far as I know), Pierre Marcolini and Jean Paul Hevin. A world apart in cost and indulgence for sure