The Good: Rich taste, Difficult to melt.
The Bad: Tastes absolutely horrible, Expensive.
The Basics: Lindt Excellence 99% Cocoa/Cacao Dark Chocolate bars were a highly anticipated confection in my household that fell unfortunately shy of being delicious.
My wife is incredible as a giftgiver and she has an almost flawless record of success when it comes to getting me great gifts to enjoy and review. Unfortunately, one of the most anticipated ones she recently presented me with ended up being reviled by both of us. After years of looking at them, for our last anniversary, my wife presented me with one of the Lindt Excellence 99% Cocoa/Cacao Dark Chocolate bars. Unfortunately, it turned out to be pretty vile.
I am a huge fan of Lindt chocolates and of dark chocolate, so the appearance of the 99% Cocoa/Cacao Dark Chocolate dark chocolate bar was one that was not unwelcome. Almost immediately, my wife and I sat down and unwrapped this remarkably thin and expensive bar (it was $5.00 for a 1.8 oz. chocolate bar) and tried a square each. As she more or less spit out her sample, I struggled with finding something to praise about the chocolate and as I wend my way through the last of the bar, I am still struggling.
Back in the day, I used to make ice cream and share it with my friends. Once, I made a mint chocolate ice cream that was so powerfully peppermint, many complained it tasted like toothpaste. One person said, "I absolutely love mint and this is too much mint." I, on the other hand, love mint and that ice cream was enough mint (finally!). My point with this digression was this: I love dark chocolate and 99% cocoa, as embodied by Lindt's 99% Cocoa/Cacao Dark Chocolate bars is too much chocolate. It is more an intellectual exercise than a pleasant taste treat.
Basics
The Lindt 99% Cocoa/Cacao Dark Chocolate Bar is a wafer-thin dark chocolate bar from Lindt. Each 1.8 oz. chocolate bar is wrapped in gold foil and protected by a thin plastic tray. The actual chocolate bar is 3 3/8” wide by 7” long and features twenty-one segments of the bar. Each segment is a flat square block which is solid dark chocolate.
The exterior chocolate is very dark and very hard. Individually, the bars are found in the $5.00 range, which is expensive, but average price for this quality of chocolate bar.
Ease Of Preparation
Lindt 99% Cocoa/Cacao Dark Chocolate bars are chocolate, not painting with oils. Preparing them is as easy as opening the box, removing a candy bar and unwrapping the bar. Because the chocolate is so pricy, I recommend eating this segment by segment, not just biting right into the bar.
Taste
Here is where the 99% Cacao Dark Chocolate bar becomes an unfortunate failure. The scent of the chocolate is powerful, but does not smell like chocolate most people will be familiar with. Bearing the aroma of a baker’s chocolate, the Lindt 99% Cocoa/Cacao Dark Chocolate bar adequately prepares the consumer for the taste of chocolate utterly devoid of any sweetner.
Placing the 99% Cocoa/Cacao Dark Chocolate segment on the tongue, I was trapped near tears. My wife spit hers out. The taste of chocolate this dark is best expressed as a texture. This is dry. This is an unholy dry flavor and the closest flavor I have ever tasted to this would be dirt. Not coffee, no derivation of chocolate, this candy bar tastes like dry earth and it is entirely unpalatable.
Nutrition
Lindt makes their fine chocolates with fine ingredients, which is arguably why they are so expensive. With the primary ingredients being chocolate, cocoa powder and cocoa butter, the Lindt 99% Cocoa/Cacao Dark Chocolate bars are not a wonderful food to try to survive on. However, they do use natural ingredients and none of them are unpronounceable. In a one-bar serving (it is impossible for me to imagine eating this whole bar in one sitting!), there are 200 calories, 180 of which are from fat. This represents 31% of one's RDA of fat (55% of the RDA of saturated fat). Each bar has 10 mg of sodium and 6 grams of protein. In other words, this is not a snack to try to survive on.
Storage/Clean-Up
Because this particular chocolate is so close to pure, the Lindt 99% Cocoa/Cacao Dark Chocolate bars are exceptionally solid and even today as my room reaches the high eighties, this candy bar has shown no inkling of melting.
Clean-up is easy, so long as the chocolate does not melt. The Lindt 99% Cocoa/Cacao Dark Chocolate bars have wrappers that ought to be properly disposed of, but otherwise, the chocolate washes off skin and non-porous surfaces. If the chocolate melts onto fabric, consult a fabric guide; this chocolate will stain.
Overall
As much as I wanted to love the Lindt 99% Cocoa/Cacao Dark Chocolate Bar, this is a pretty vile taste experience and not one I would recommend to anyone, even dark chocolate enthusiasts.
For other Lindt chocolate products, please visit my reviews of:
Petits Mousse Au Chocolat Noir bar
Dark Peppermint Lindor truffles
Pistachio Nut bar
1.5/10
For more food reviews, please check out my index page!
© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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