I'm not really sure which of the above to blame for today's chocolate fiasco story. Perhaps any of them, perhaps all of them. Here's what happened: My friend Mary is also a chocolate aficionado, and after reading my recent blog post about chocolate, she wanted me to try the strongest dark chocolate that I described. I thought it was 86%, but it was actually 85%. Anyway, I wrote back to her that I could probably save myself the money and just write that it would be too bitter for my taste. But today, I was at the store and saw the Lindt Excellence collection, a sampler that showed Mint Intense, Orange Intense, 70% cacao dark chocolate and 85% cacao dark chocolate pieces on the package. "Okay," I thought, "I'll try them just so that Mary will be happy."
Well, I got home and opened up the package and found out that while there were several of each of the Mint Intense, Orange Intense and 70% cacao dark chocolate squares, there were NO 85% cacao pieces in the package AT ALL! I was not amused. Those weasels lied to me on their package! I don't know if it was the weaselly Swiss who own the company, the weaselly French who manufactured the chocolate or the weaselly New Hampshireans (New Hampshirites?) who packaged the chocolate here in America. Probably the latter, but we'll spread the blame liberally.
So, I'm sorry, Mary, but I still can't tell you anything about that 85% cacao dark chocolate. Although the 70% cacao is quite bitter. The orange and mint flavors are sweet enough to take some of the bite out of it in the other two kinds. I think I'll probably stick to milk chocolate for a while after this.
