23rd March 2010

All last week my team of tasters and I have been steadily working our way through all seven bars of The Raw Chocolate Co’s range. Before you wonder about our expanding waste lines, this is healthy chocolate, yep you heard me!

Now you might not think of chocolate as being a ‘cooked’ product, but theory behind raw chocolate means there is no kind of processing whatsoever. The cacao bean from which chocolate is made are actually extremely nutritious (full of iron, zinc, magnesium and anti-oxidants) and during the roasting of the beans all this nutrition can be lost. So what would we think of this virtuous sugar free chocolate?

Their original range consists of 4 bars:

Twilight

They call this semi-dark and it is a nice milk chocolate alternative. We found it light and smooth and taste wise pretty similar to ‘normal’ chocolate.

The average mark for this one was 8/10.

Midnight

This bar is flavoured with orange and spices. I have to say I liked this the least, it wasn’t sweetened with anything at all and I couldn’t tell it had orange in it as the spices were so overpowering. Descriptions we came up with were medicinal and savoury chocolate.

It just about scrapped an average mark of 1/10.

Vanoffe

Apparently this one is meant to taste like toffee, to me there was something in it that I really didn’t enjoy the taste of, but couldn’t quite put my finger on. Others were more favourable and compared it to Caramac and white chocolate ice cream  (this reviewer so obviously not a vegan!).

Average mark was  3/10.

Pitch Dark

The highest cacao solid content bar, so was expecting this to be super dark. Again for me there was a funny after taste and normally prefer dark chocolate. Some found it a bitter which is what you envisage anyway.

Average mark 5/10.

Their new The Darker Side of Delicious range are all 70% cacao solid content and proved to be the most popular amongst us:

Minted

Flavoured with mint and sweetened with xylitol. Again all their bars have a lovely smooth texture, it wasn’t as bitter as some dark chocolate and their was a cool minty after taste. One of our tasters didn’t even like dark chocolate but really enjoyed it (and came back from more about 20 mins later!).

Average mark 7/10.

Lavish

In my notes for this orange flavoured bar I have written ‘yum’. This one was everyones favourite. Leave it on your tongue to melt – heaven!

Average mark 8/10.

Loaded

Plain and simple this one lets the chocolate talk for itself. Lovely texture and converted our dark chocolate sceptic; this one could definitely bring her over to the Dark Side.

Average mark 7/10.

Go to their website to find out more about this uber environmentally friendly company, buy their chocolate bars or purchase some raw superfoods to pep up your food.

Tags: raw chocolate, Raw Living, review