Scharffen Berger Bittersweet 70% Cocoa Chocolate Bar

Posted by Edmund in Bakeries & Sweets, Featured Articles | 0 comments

Scharffen Berger Bittersweet Chocolate Bar.
70% Cocoa Chocolate Bar.
$4-$4.50 for 3 oz. (85g).

Wow! Scharffen Berger presents a beautiful bar. The wrapping only amplifies your expectations of the bar. While it’s very simple (in fact, it’s just cheap colored paper), it has a nice folksiness to it that sets you at ease—like this is old-fashioned, quality chocolate, made fresh by grandma. It is a bit cheap-looking, but I actually prefer it to some of the fancier, gaudier options.

And the chocolate itself looks just as nice. Cut into four triangles and a rhombus, the Bittersweet Chocolate Bar comes off as very symmetric, calculated, and precise, even for a bar that’s “old-fashioned.” And the logo (a ram?) is featured prominently in the center, giving this bar some character. It’s much better than the more traditional signature you’d find on most chocolate, since it doesn’t feel like they’re branding the chocolate so much as giving you some eye candy. And I really like that you can find a light design even on the back, which is something most bars don’t do.

The first thing I noticed, though, wasn’t the look but rather the aroma. Upon opening the Bittersweet Chocolate Bar, there is a burst of a deep, intense, almost sylvan aroma, complete with the smell of wild berries, sour cherries, and tropical fruits. It’s not overwhelming or extremely bold, but it is enough for me to have smelled it from a comfortable.

Trying to bite into the bar, though, isn’t quite as pleasant.  This is quite the hard bar, so it’s not so easy to cut off even a small chunk, although the symmetric, mathematical design would suggest that you can quite easily tear it into mini-triangles.

Nor is the bite the greatest. While this bar features soy lecithin (a big negative, since it gives a waxiness to the cocoa), it’s so hard that you must munch it down instead of letting it melt in your mouth. When it finally does melt, though, the lecithin does kick in to give the bar some creaminess.

As for the flavor of the bar, it’s nice, but far from what I’d consider ideal. The bitterness isn’t dry or overbearing, nor extremely flavorful or complex. This bar just very simple, nicely done chocolate. It features notes of sour cherries, smoke, roasted coffee, a very tiny bit of passion fruit, and particularly raspberries. However, it’s not as complex as that description might suggest, since everything comes through so subtly. On the one hand, that means the chocolate isn’t too hard on the palate, as many dark chocolates can be. On the other, none of the flavors have much longevity, and you’re left with a nice, but weak, bitterness.

Moreover, the progression of flavors isn’t smooth at all, as the marked sourness of the bar gives way abruptly to a very bitter end. So, while the bar is rather long, lasting for a few minutes in your mouth after you eat it, that finish doesn’t leave the most enjoyable impression on the palate.

Scharffen Berger’s Bittersweet Chocolate Bar, then, is a mixed bag at best. While it has some decent flavors, it doesn’t feature the balance or complexity necessary to elevate it beyond its competition.

Presentation: 4.0/5.0
Melt: 1.5/5.0
Length: 3.5/5.0
Taste: 2.8/5.0
Value: 2.0/5.0. About standard for a bar of this quality, but there’s much better at this price.
Overall: 2.6/5.0