Vosges: Goji Bar

I realized a couple of weeks ago that I had yet to review a Vosges bar on this website and thought about how embarrassing it would be if people thought I hadn't tried this fancy bar. BEEN THERE, done that, of course, but it's definitely time I wrote a word or two about Vosges since everyone seems to encounter it sometime or other in a Whole Foods and remark about the funny flavors. This bar was, comparatively, low key:

Vosges: Goji Bar

Cocoa content: 41%

Notable ingredients: goji berries, pink Himalayan salt

Origin: n/a

Vosges is tuned into the aesthetic of chocolate, as evidenced by their directions for how to optimize sensory experience, on the back of each bar: See, Smell, Snap, Taste, Feel -- these are some of the non-FDA evaluated ways to approach such fine chocolate as this. The website takes it a little too far, maybe, recommending yak cheese as an accompaniment and likening the taste of the goji to plum and currant -- (not quite.)

Vosges consistently has an excellent snap and mouth feel as well as an artful composition and proportional blending of flavors -- for reference, other Vosges bars I've enjoyed are Calindia and Black Pearl, containing cardamom/walnuts/plums and ginger/wasabi/sesame, respectively. So you can see how this bar has turned it down a notch.

The taste is great, and while the berries don't exactly deliver on their plum-esque promise, their usual dirt-like taste is undetectable here. The salt is perfect, balancing the sweetness of the chocolate as well as the earthiness of the berry, and while it's certainly strong it doesn't overpower the cocoa flavor. The one textural complaint I had was that the goji berries got stuck in my teeth -- and not just my teeth, but the teeth of my guests, and that's something I can't excuse. 

So, with that in mind, I award this bar an A-.