Monday, September 28, 2015

Delightful Dark: Newman's Own Organics Super Dark Chocolate 70% Cocoa Bar Gets It Right (For A Price)!


The Good: Great taste, Wonderful quality, Great ingredients.
The Bad: Expensive!
The Basics: Newman's Own Organics 70% Cocoa chocolate bars are wonderful, but hardly worth more than similar quality, less expensive, chocolates!


Every now and then, I am reminded of just how lucky I am to be able to find so many amazing things at my local discount store. Despite living in the virtual middle of nowhere, there is a store nearby that seems to buy up trucks of returns, overstocks and other merchandise (as near as I can tell by the sheer variety and randomness of the products they stock) and they sell them at pretty incredible discounts. This was hammered home to me as I went to review the Newman's Own Organics 70% Cocoa Chocolate Bar I bought there and I saw the disparity between the online price and the price at which I bought them.

The Newman's Own Organics 70% Cocoa Chocolate Bars are good, but not worth $7+ each; I was fortunate enough to find them for less than $1.00/ea! The difference makes all the difference. These chocolate bars are wonderful, but they are not worth that much more than other, comparable, chocolate bars that are less expensive.

Basics

Newman's Own Organics 70% Cocoa chocolate Bars are each 6" long by 3" wide and 1/4" thick. Each of the bars comes individually wrapped in a wrapper and features eight segments that make it easier to consume than biting into the whole bar.

Each segment is a seamless square that is solid, with the Newman's Own Organics "N" punched into the top. The 70% Cocoa chocolate Bar come in a standard 3.25 oz. bar. The thick paper wrapper does little to protect the bar, though I’ve not had any breakage from the few I picked up at a store that is less than careful about how they handle inventory.

Ease Of Preparation

This is candy, so preparing them is as simple as opening the wrapper and cracking off a square segment of the bar. There is no grand secret to eating Newman's Own Organics 70% Cocoa Chocolate Bars. These bars are exceptionally hard at room temperature, which makes them very easy to crack into proper segments.

Taste

The Newman's Own Organics 70% Cocoa bars have a surprisingly mild aroma to them. This chocolate bar has virtually no scent, which sets the consumer up for a far less flavorful bar than they actually are.

On the tongue, this chocolate is rich and powerful with its cocoa taste, with a strong dry aspect to the flavor, especially as it finishes reaching its potential in the mouth. As a result, this tastes like a very-concentrated dark chocolate without much sweetness to it. There is no waxiness or creaminess to it. This is a potent, true rendition of cocoa flavor, without the diluted milk or sugar flavor mass-produced bars have. Those looking for a fine dark chocolate will get exactly what they expect from this chocolate bar.

Predictably, the Newman's Own Organics 70% Cocoa Chocolate Bar has a strong, dry aftertaste. That said, the aftertaste does not ever transition into bitter or sour, the way some chocolate bars with a high cocoa percentage sometimes do.

Nutrition

These are candy, so they are not healthy, but the Newman's Own Organics 70% Cocoa Chocolate Bars are not nearly as bad as they could be. The sole ingredient is organic dark chocolate. There is nothing unpronounable in this candy and everything in it is certified organic by the Rainforest Alliance and the USDA.

A serving of the Newman's Own Organics 70% Cocoa Chocolate Bar is considered one whole bar. From a bar, one takes in 470 calories, including 40 grams of fat. There is no sodium and 7 g protein, but no vitamins in these chocolate bars. There is 15% of one's daily iron and Calcium in full bar, so that is decent.

These are not Vegan-compliant (they are manufactured on machines that require them to have a milk warning), nor are they recommended for anyone with a nut allergy as they are produced on the same equipment that peanuts and tree nuts pass over. They are also not recommended for anyone with a soy, wheat, or egg allergy.

Storage/Clean-up

The Newman's Own Organics 70% Cocoa Chocolate Bar remains fresh for quite some time. While I could not find an expiration date on my bar, it had been kicking around for several months, partially opened without any issues. One assumes that if they are kept in a cool, dry environment they will not melt or go bad. It is hard to imagine just what it would take for these to go bad outside melting and refreezing.

As for cleanup, don't litter with these environmentally-friendly wrappers; that's just rude. Outside that, there is no real cleanup needed, unless one is eating them in a hot environment. In that case, it is likely one would need to wash their hands. If these chocolate bars melt into most fabrics, they will stain. Getting them to melt is surprisingly hard, though.

Overall

The Newman's Own Organics 70% Cocoa Chocolate Bar is perfectly wonderful, but overpriced for what it is. It tastes great, but there are other, comparable 70% cocoa chocolate bars on the market that will not blow one's budget to stock up on!

For other dark chocolates, please check out my reviews of:
Lindt 99% Cocoa Dark Chocolate Bar
Endangered Species Chocolate Dark Chocolate With Forest Mint Bar
Cachet Lemon & Black Pepper Dark Chocolate Bars

8/10

For other food and drink reviews, please visit my Food And Drink Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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