Trio of Bars from Life by Chocolate

Life by Chocolate sounds great, doesn't it?  If you recall they were one of our Sacraments for Easter 2011.  While we sampled the other products they sent soon after we wanted to give them notice later in the year plus we got very busy.  Always odd to busy in the summer when chocolate is very expensive to ship but that's why we do pre-writes of many of our featured reviews.

This trio of their 1.6oz bars has uniqueness written right on the labels.  We'll start with "On the Vine" which has fair trade dark chocolate (73%), currants, almonds and royal jelly.  The chocolate bars have six sections the chocolate fully surrounding the fillings so with each bite you can get more filling.  As you can see to the left, the almonds are big.  This has a dark scent with a hint of fruity essence.  The chocolate makes a good snap when I break it apart to show you the inside but also as I bite; the almonds add crunch and sound with each chew.  The chocolate has a nice bitter edge to it and underneath it is a fruity flavor blended well with the almond and some unknown essence which might be the royal jelly though I'm not sure exactly what is meant by that.

"Red Dog" is one of their vegan bars and it's spicy so much as uniquely tart and sweet because it has molasses and peanut butter in the 72% dark chocolate.  This is also fair trade chocolate for those Sisters and Brothers who like to support businesses that support the cacao farmers.  Note the little doggie heads on the wrapper -- cute.  The scent is purely dark cocoa but when you break it apart the molasses tang comes through with a hint of peanut.  This is very chewy, almost like you might be eating partly solid molasses, it has a tang and an earthy, unsalted peanut taste but also the chocolate's nice bitterness comes through. Another great bar.

Finally let's look at the "Bee's Knees" bar, a 73% dark chocolate bar with honey and bee pollen.  Now I've heard that buying local honey can help with one's allergies but I'm betting after cooking being mixed with chocolate that isn't so true; but hey, what can it hurt, right?  The fragrance is really dark cocoa, even after I break it open with a snap, you can see the honey oozing out a bit in the photo, the scent stays strongly chocolate.  The creamy looking honey is sweet and a very good complement to the bitter chocolate making this a bar that people not used to such high level of cacao may also like.  This full sensory journey coupled with fair trade and organic made this a very good bar indeed.

A big thank again to Life by Chocolate for providing us with Sacrament worthy chocolate to share with all of you, Sisters and Brothers.  Check them out now that the price for shipping chocolate will soon fall again with the temperatures.

Comments

Nava Krishnan said…
Lovely looking chocs but I am like once a while for chocs but am sure will be great to be given away as gifts.
Thanks for commenting, Nava. I don't think I'd call these "lovely looking" myself, pretty plain really, but thank you for sharing your thoughts.
briarrose said…
Oh my.....these different flavors sound lovely. It would be quite difficult to decide what I wanted to start sampling. ;)
They are so inexpensive, and they have so many varieties if you go check out their website, that I wish they had a sampler pack one could buy.
Great post. You are a good writer. I love chocolate.
It is positive comments that motivate me, Christine.