at Mon, 03 Nov 2003 02:35:19 GMT in
>,
(David D.) wrote :

>Since unsweetened chocolate is quite bitter, I assumed that *extreme*
>amount of sugar contained in chocolate bars, cocoa mixes and other
>chocolate confections was added in order to offset the bitterness.

Of course a lot of chocolate bars do have extreme amounts of sugar, but I
think this is for a different reason. It's important to distinguish between
a *chocoholic* and a *sugar-holic* whose favourite delivery format for
sugar happens to be chocolate. A lot of people, I think, fall into the
latter category. It's easy to put people to the test - give them a good,
strong, dark chocolate to try. If they like it, they probably genuinely
like chocolate. If they react with distaste, it's probably the sugar they
actually like. One of the people I work with is a case in point. He claimed
to like chocolate. But his choices were always the cloyingly sweet types.
Then I brought in some very good bittersweet chocolates for him to try. He
didn't like any of them. It took me several sessions to convince him that
he was really a sugar-holic.

In any case, since there's a big market for the sugar-holics, there are
plenty of chocolates out there to target that market. There are also plenty
of chocolates out there to target the genuine chocoholic. Just decide what
group you really fit and buy that type of chocolate.

>
>To the contrary, I just had a chocolate bar that was 85% cacao, and it
>was delicious! To me, it tasted far more chocolaty than your more
>typical half-sugar bars. It apparently takes only a small amount of
>sweetener to bring out the chocolate flavor.
>
>In fact, I heard that there is one German company that has just released
>a 95% cacao chocolate bar (which I would like to track down).

As previously mentioned, there's Michel Cluizel with the 99% Noir Infini.
And this is a really, really good chocolate indeed. It's worth seeking out
for anyone who likes chocolate.

Do you live in the USA? Chocosphere (http://www.chocosphere.com) carries
both the Cluizel 99% and the Lindt 85%. You might also want to give the
Slitti 100% a try as well, although IMHO it's a little below the Cluizel.
>
>The 85% cacao bar that I described is called "Lindt Excellence
>Edlelbitter".

You got really lucky, because that's the best of the 85% bars and another
of the great chocolates of the world. Typically Lindt is merely OK, not
great, but in this bar they seem to have outdone themselves.

More typically, 85% bars taste a bit flat and monotonous. IMHO the perfect
balance of sugar to chocolate happens in the 66% - 75% range. That's enough
sugar to prevent the bar from tasting one-dimensional but not so much that
it starts to diminish the chocolate flavour.

>I do not like the German chocolate bars that I have had in the past,
>because they are very high in cocoa butter, which makes them taste fatty
>to me.

There's a fine line there. 40% or so cocoa butter is about ideal. When it
gets to about 35%, the bar will seem rather dry and powdery. When it is at
50%, OTOH, it usually does seem a little greasy. Different manufacturers
opt for different tradeoffs, but I don't think you can generalize to a
country that easily. I usually look at each manufacturer on an individual
basis, rather than bringing in expectations based on nationality of origin.

--
Alex Rast

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