Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Buying The Brand Name, Not The Flavor: Chocolate Truffle Coffee From Godiva Underwhelms.


The Good: Appropriately caffeinated, Tastes fine
The Bad: Expensive (paying for name), Tastes nothing like chocolate, Not the strongest coffee blend.
The Basics: Godiva Chocolate Truffle Coffee is not chocolate enough (or dark coffee enough) to satisfy serious cocophiles or coffee loves.


Brand names (on their own) do not impress me. For a product to actually impress me, it has to do what it promises; if it is a device, it has to work. If it is a food or drink, it has to taste like it claims. That is, alas, not the case with Godiva Chocolate Truffle coffee. Godiva Chocolate Truffle coffee does not have a strong chocolate aroma, nor a particularly distinctive taste that is remotely chocolate. As for the coffee flavoring, as one who loves dark brews of coffee, the Godiva Chocolate Truffle coffee left me largely unimpressed.

Basics

Based on the success of Godiva, the fine international chocolatier, Godiva began selling its coffee in supermarkets and other stores. The standard size for Chocolate Truffle is a 12 oz. bag. It is a limited edition, seasonally-available, flavor of coffee.

The Chocolate Truffle Blend is an aromatic blend that comes ground and, before brewing, smells delightfully like chocolate and coffee. Sadly, the beverage it makes is not as good.

Ease Of Preparation

Chocolate Truffle Coffee is remarkably easy to prepare, no advanced culinary degrees necessary! First, open the bag. Godiva Chocolate Truffle Coffee is vacuum sealed when first purchased, so when it is opened, the bag will likely plump up a little. Then, measure out one heaping tablespoon for every two cups of water in your coffee maker. Chocolate Truffle Coffee is intended for automatic (drip or percolating) coffee makers. This is NOT an instant coffee. As a result, it needs to be brewed and I use a Hamilton Beach machine (reviewed here!) with Melitta coffee filters (reviewed here!).

Consult your coffee maker's instructions for how to brew the coffee. However, as far as the basics go, you'll need a coffee filter, which you put the Chocolate Truffle Coffee in and then brew through your coffee maker. The directions recommend making a pot at a time and serving it within twenty minutes and brewing complete pots does seem to net a more unified taste to the coffee (nothing too weak or too strong - as if the latter is possible!).

Taste

The Chocolate Truffle blend smells only slightly chocolatey, like the assumption of chocolate flavor as opposed to an actual chocolate scent. The insinuation of chocolate in the aroma becomes more distinctly like fudge as the coffee cools some.

Sadly, the Chocolate Truffle does not taste much like chocolate, either. Instead, it lacks the bitterness of a truly dark blend, but has a slightly sour aftertaste, as if the coffee beans had marinated in slightly off milk and that had transferred to the coffee beans somehow. Outside the sour aftertaste, there is actually nothing particularly distinctive about this coffee, in terms of flavor, that might make one think it is chocolate truffle flavored.

Chocolate Truffle gets sweet very quickly with just a little bit of sugar. Again, this (sadly) does not make it taste more like chocolate truffle.

Nutrition

This is coffee, not something that appears on the nutrition pyramid! Godiva Chocolate Truffle Coffee does not contribute anything to one's daily recommended allowance of anything. In fact, the bag does not have any ingredients, so I am forced to assume all that is in this blend is coffee beans, which would fit what it tastes like.

This is a caffeinated blend and it feels like it! This has enough caffeine to pop one's eyes open between the taste, aroma and caffeine. Because it is a caffeinated coffee, it appears to not have undergone any of the chemical processes that sometimes cause complications in decaffeinated coffees.

Storage/Clean-up

Chocolate Truffle Coffee ought to be stored sealed in its container with the top firmly closed. Coffee is known to absorb flavors of food nearby it, so keeping the top tightly closed is highly recommended. There are different schools of thought on refrigerating open coffee and I have a very clean refrigerator with a lot of ways to segregate coffee, so I tend to come down on the side of refrigerate it. The container makes no recommendations on that count.

After brewing, coffee grounds ought to be disposed of. These grounds may be thrown in the trash when used or put in a compost pile, if available. Coffee grounds make great compost.

Overall

Godiva Chocolate Truffle Coffee is a fair coffee, but vastly overpriced for the price.

For other coffee reviews, please visit my reviews of:
Taster’s Choice Vanilla Instant Coffee
Tim Horton’s Fine Ground Coffee
Kahlua Coffee

4/10

For other food or drink reviews, please check out my Food Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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