Flyer Chocolates: Milk Chocolate & Roasted Almonds

"Conched for days"

John Paris is the Swiss chocolatier of Flyer Chocolates, which is conservatively distributed out of Atlanta. I never see it anywhere. This I found at Eden Gourmet in South Orange, NJ. It's not often that I buy milk chocolate but to every cocoa content there is a season -- especially when roasted almonds are in the mix. This bar won out over the Vosges Goji bar I was considering, in part because I've already had Vosges a few times but also because goji berries taste of dirt. Here are the stats.

Flyer Chocolates: Milk Chocolate w/ Roasted Almonds

Cocoa content: I don't know because it's not listed on the wrapper or on the website.

Notable ingredients: Bourbon vanilla beans; roasted almonds

Origin: Swiss

I expected this to be really good because they talk about some weird "conching" technique in which the chocolate is kneaded and stirred for days to make it creamier. It's supposed to prevent the unpleasant aftertaste associated with sour-milk Hershey's-type chocolate. It's not that good though. The ratio of almonds the chocolate is really nice (read: heavy on almonds) but the chocolate is so devoid of an aftertaste that I feel like I didn't eat it at all. It's almost airy -- too light. It doesn't coat your mouth like a Dove or Lindt creamy milk does. It actually kind of tasted like a slightly sweeter version of the bland milk chocolate of which those Valentine's hearts are made -- the ones wrapped in pink foil. Or the chocolate that Raisinets are made of. Unimpressive, but still kind of tasty. Underwhelming is more accurate. B-.