Ghirardelli - Dark 60% Cocao

Price $7.95 for 85g

Comparative price $9.35 per 100g

Origin Blended

Rating 2 stars

Buy again No.  Its not bad, but not great

Sight

Generally non-descript packaging although it does provide a rather noble looking crest and logo. But it wasn't packaging I was looking for, I was wandering around David Jones with a desire to try something new, and this brand keeps popping up so I thought why not give it a go? An American brand I believe (and I know, American's aren't renowned for great chocolate, but there are some good chocolate makers if you look past Hershey and co).

I was quite content with my purchase, however upon getting said purchase home I became a little more apprehensive thanks to a perusal of the ingredients list. Perhaps I was a little naive, or possibly even ignorant, in assuming I was buying 'real chocolate' - that is the chocolate with minimal and pure ingredients. Perhaps I am just spoilt, as this block wasn't offering me up such purity:

Ingredients : sugar, unsweetened chocolate (cocoa), cocoa butter, milk fat, emulsifier, vanilla.

Alarm bells started ringing loud and clear upon the realisation sugar is the number one ingredient in this chocolate! Aren't the beans the highlight and sugar just to help them a long a little? And what is milk fat doing in my chocolate?

I will however give this block credit on two fronts. One being at least real vanilla is used rather than the rather scary and synthetic vanillin. And secondly the packaging displays the correct term of cocao, rather than cocoa - however these are just words and don't count towards for quality or flavour.

But that's a lot of effort on packaging...the chocolate itself is a dark brown and offers large, thick, satisfying pieces. That allays some of my ranting disturbia about the ingredients as I do like a good sized piece of chocolate, and it is well finished with a pretty shine, no air bubbles and a rather ornate logo on top.

Smell

Very little aroma. And what is there doesn’t smell richly decadent like a good chocolate but dare I say a little artificial, perhaps its all that sugar...

Even on the break this is offering up very little aroma. Disappointing on the olfactory front.

Sound

It may disappoint on smell but not on sound - a great snap. The chocolate resists at first and then its like breaking a twig – a very sharp, definite snap. Impressive!

Taste & Texture

One of my immediate observations is how slowly this melts, you really need to work it to get it some melting action, but in itself that isn’t a bad thing if the rest of the chocolate delivers.

The texture is smooth enough, although certainly not the best I’ve had. You get the impression the particles aren’t quite as fine as other brands such as Valrhona. Where the latter offers a natural, seductive melt, this feels forced - but maybe not a fair comparison, Valrhona are the masters of texture.

What surprises me regarding taste is the bitterness, there is initially a rather strong hit - more than I would expect for a 60% which is particularly noticeable at the start of the tasting and from there the flavour profile continues with earthy, mushroom tones. However, on the other side of the taste equation there is amongst all that bitter, earthy taste a sweetness, and this underlying sweetness keeps peaking through distracting from other flavours.

Interestingly, on several occasions I get distinct flashes of milk in the tasting but couldn't hold on to that flavour for long, it was a fleeting but definite recognition.

And whilst this is generally a mellow chocolate, the profile does develop to include some acidity and what I can only describe as red berries, a profile that at times is distinctly strawberry in characteristic.

The chocolate doesn't linger, and is very dry on the palette neither of which are ideal, but what is a little more disturbing is the rather sour and astringent tastes that remains, cruelly taunting my taste buds.

Summary

Overall a very mild chocolate with an okay but inconsistent profile of bitterness, sweetness, strawberries and milk - finishing on a sourness. Overall the flavour of this leaves me confused...

The texture again is okay, I've had much better and I have had worse.

I am very disappointed in the ingredients and this perhaps leads to my less than ideal experience with the taste and to a lesser degree the texture. It's okay but to me this isn't fine chocolate, from inception with the ingredients through to execution with the taste, it is compromised. I won't be buying it again, a little mass market for me, and I would rate it as 2 out of 5.

Purchased: David Jones Melbourne

Reviewer: Shari
Date: 24 February 2009