Salazon Chocolate Co.: Sea Salt & Crushed Organic Coffee

I had never heard of this company until I saw this bar last week at the Whole Foods on the Bowery. Salazon was established in 2009 by a group of hikers who -- seriously -- realized chocolate went well with salt when they broke up a dark chocolate bar and added it to their trail mix. I mean, I feel like: hello! But you can't expect everyone to know these things. Anyway, these hikers sat around a campfire and talked about turning their revelation into a business model. Thus Salazon (meaning "salted" in Spanish) was born in the mountains of Utah.

Salazon Chocolate Co.: Sea Salt & Crushed Organic Coffee
Cocoa content: 54%
Notable ingredients: sea salt; crushed organic coffee
Origin: predominantly from the DR

All of the Salazon chocolate bars -- of which there are presently 4 -- are salted by default. Salt is pretty much always good in a chocolate bar, and I like the way this bar uses the salt. Instead of integrating it, they scatter the flaky sea salt on the underside surface of the bar. The coffee is distributed this way, too. The top of the bar is smooth, the interior of the bar is consistent and uninterrupted, and the bottom surface of the bar is covered in flakes of salt and coffee. It creates an interesting texture and, I think, makes better use of the good ingredients. They're just so much easier to taste this way.

Salazon says they don't make a milk chocolate bar because they see chocolate as an energy food, as opposed to a candy. That's fine -- but the fact that all of their bars have a cocoa content of 54% seems restrictive to me. Salt and coffee, especially, would work nicely with a higher percentage. Also, chocolate doesn't have to be unhealthy, but let's face it: it's not hiking food. This bar comes in a paper wrapper with a foil inner wrapper, has absolutely no perforation lines for clean, portioned breaks, and tends to be really messy because of the flaky bottom surface.

Even so, it's really tasty. Hopefully more stores will be carrying these within the next year. B+.

Endangered Species: Dark w/ Cacao Nibs

Endangered Species is a chocolate company that donates a high percentage of profits to habitat conservation initiatives and is involved with some other wildlife support projects. Each bar they make is associated with an animal (I've previously blogged about the spider monkey bar, which contains goji berries, pecans, and maca.) That last Endangered Species bar was delicious, and since 72% cocoa bars basically never fail, I decided to give this one a try, too. I bought it at the health food store in Bronxville, NY.

Endangered Species: Dark w/ Cacao Nibs
Cocoa content: 72%
Notable ingredients: cocoa nibs
Origin: n/a

Animals + chocolate: I can't really think of a more compelling combination -- so what better a time to learn about animals than when you're eating chocolate? I'm not crazy about bats, but then again, according to this wrapper, "bats may be the most misunderstood animals in the United States." Basically, people think bats are spooky and erratic but really they're just these incredibly unique, vision-impaired flying mammals who snack on insects and suffer from habitat destruction, hibernation disturbance, and -- get this -- direct killing! Who goes around killing bats? Who does that!

I don't know what if anything bats have to do with cocoa nibs, but this was a particularly good nib bar. Nibs are the dry-roasted bits of the cocoa bean -- that is, before it's processed and blended with cocoa butter and other fats and oils. Nibs can sometimes be too big (and thus disruptive of the bar's overall texture) or too conservatively distributed. In this bar, the nibs were small, crunchy, and plentiful, and they had a nice roasted flavor. The bar melted nicely around them and snapped cleanly and easily despite them.

Overall this bar was great, and I feel proud to have helped the disadvantaged little bat in a small way. A-.

NibMor: Crispy

My local Eden Gourmet recently began selling NibMor chocolates, so I picked one up when I was home for Thanksgiving break. The name is kind of misleading -- there are no nibs (bits of roasted cocoa bean) in this chocolate. There may never have been nibs in the processing of this chocolate, because I don't think the cocoa beans were ever roasted. And that, readers, was a huge mistake on NibMor's part. Because this bar was nasty.

NibMor: Crispy
Cocoa content: 65%
Notable ingredients: crispy brown rice; agave nectar
Origin: n/a

NibMor is a couple of women in Huntington, on Long Island, making nasty chocolate bars and leaving out all the good ingredients that make chocolate palatable. Vegan. Dairy Free. Gluten Free. Non-GMO. No Refined Sugar. Kosher. Recyclable. I don't even know how a chocolate bar can be recyclable. Was I not supposed to eat it? Anyway, I'm going to make a list of things I hate about this bar.

1. Raw: The package has all sorts of labels and certifications on it. It's Raw (of course,) it's Certified Vegan, it's USDA Organic. Here's what I don't get -- vegans, ok, I understand that they have to eat chocolate too. Some of their chocolate is ok. Most of it isn't -- whatever! They're doing the best they can! But Raw foodists? Isn't the Raw food movement primarily concerned with maintaining the natural nutrients and antioxidants in food? I know what they say about a little chocolate every day being good for your heart or something, but let's be honest -- chocolate is an indulgence! There are no important nutrients to maintain here, really. Is it worth ruining what could have been a perfectly good chocolate bar just to save some antioxidants?

2. Agave Nectar: Agave is what vegans use instead of honey, because honey comes from bees. Agave is nice to drizzle on yogurt. But last time I checked, sugar is ok for vegans. Sugar actually comes from a plant! And it's the only sweetener that really works with chocolate for consistency reasons. So why couldn't NibMor use sugar? Of course they're concerned with refined ingredients, but plenty of chocolate is made with unrefined cane sugar. Is this flashy, unnecessary nod to veganism worth the gummy, crumbly consistency?

3. Consistency: Combine raw chocolate and agave nectar, and you've achieved the consistency of a Power Bar. NibMor doesn't break along even lines, it has no snap to speak of, and eating it involves a lot of chewing and no melting. Creaminess is sacrificed for cold processing. This was a sticky, lifeless mess.

4. Brown Rice: This is just ridiculous. If you're staying away from refined grains -- if you're staying away from refined anything -- just forget about chocolate. Everything that is good about chocolate is going to offend your diet.

That's that. Next week I will enjoy a chocolate bar rife with refined sugar and literally filled with dairy. This bar gets a D.