I've mentioned before that we have a store here called The Chocolate Shoebox that sells vegan shoes and chocolate, and I recently went there to look around. What am I saying, I went there for chocolate. I was with Bethany, and she's a bad-or-good influence depending on your point of view. While Bethany was picking out her chocolate, I was carefully examining labels, weighing my options. I'm a sucker for cool packaging and short ingredient lists. I didn't see my favorite brand, Rescue Chocolates because it had been moved to a new location, but I did find a lovely bar of raw, organic chocolate that seemed to be attaching itself to my hand. I loved the package design, the rough feel of the wrapper, and the fact that there were only three ingredients — organic raw cacao, organic rapadura, and organic bourbon vanilla.
The woman behind the counter offered that it was her favorite raw chocolate — but it was not a dessert chocolate. "Does it taste like dirt?" I (tactlessly) asked. "It's earthy," she said. I knew just what she meant. I've eaten raw cacao nibs and I'm not a big fan. Still, I plunked my $4.99 (plus 9.5% sales tax if you can believe that.) on the counter and took my earthy little bar of Fearless chocolate home.
I just want to be clear that this bar does NOT taste like dirt. It's delicious, really delicious, and I thought it was quite sweet. I wondered why it was considered raw, and found the answer on the box. The cacao is not roasted, and not heated above 118˚F, if this is important to you.
If you like dark chocolate, definitely try to find some of this wonderful stuff. It's great, and you can feel even better about buying it because one percent of the purchase price will go to a worthy cause, and the box is made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper.
Disclaimer: I bought this chocolate myself. No one asked me to review it or probably cares that I did, nor did anyone pay me. Darn.
