Clif Energy bar - Chocolate Chip Peanut Crunch

I'm not a fan of cereal bars, with the exception of Nature Valley Crunchy Oats & Dark Chocolate Granola Bars, but I couldn't resist the absolutely beautiful package design of this product. Besides, who can say nay when words like chocolate chip and peanut are floating before their eyes? So I picked up this Clif Energy bar from my trusty supermarket, Ratna Stores at Maitri Park, Chembur. These bars came all the way to Chembur from the US of A, where Clif Bar & Company make a host of organic health foods.

The company was set up by Gary Erickson in 1992 and is headquartered in Emeryville, California. Erickson got the idea of the flagship product, a basic health bar, in 1990 during a day-long bike ride. Back in those days, there were hardly any good energy bars and Erickson decided to make his own, starting his experiments in his mom's kitchen. Happy with his formula, he set up the company and named it Clif after his father, Clifford. The rock climber illustration, which is used to this day, was made by his friend, Doug Gilmore, on a napkin over dinner in San Francisco. Wikipedia cites, "in the the first year itself, sales of CLIF Bar exceeded $700,000, fueled primarily by strong sales in bike shops and the growth of the healthy and natural foods movement."

Today, the brand is highly popular not just for its products but also its CSR activities and commitment to organic foods. Clif Bar & Company produces a hot of products today, including nutrition bars for kids, protein bars for body builders, granola bars, fruit & nut bars and special bars for women. The Clif Chocolate Chip Peanut Crunch Energy Bar is one among their popular categories.

The bar comprises organic brown rice syrup, soy protein isolate, rice flour, barley malt extract, organic rolled oats, organic peanut butter, chocolate chips, cocoa butter and peanuts among other things. The taste of peanut/peanut butter comes through, but the barely-there chocolate chips don't do anything for the bar. The consistency is sticky-soft and the taste is moderately sweet. However, it isn't tasty (as is the case with all healthy foods), and has that unmistakable cardboard-like flavour that raw oats tend to have. Don't ask me when I ate cardboard.

But the taste wasn't the only turn off. Price at an eye-watering INR 210, the 68g bar is hardly affordable for everyday consumption. I would have liked to try their double chocolate bar, but I think it's way too expensive.

RATING: 2.5/5

Fazer Angry Birds Chocolates @ The Cocoa Trees

Singapore based brand, The Cocoa Trees has recently introduced internationally renowned Fazer Angry Birds Chocolates first time in India to its vast range of chocolates for its Indian audience. The Angry birds and the pigs have now turned into sweets, lollipops and chewing gums.
The Cocoa Trees have launched Fazer Angry Bird Sweets, Lollipops, Chocolate Eggs and Chewing gums into the market.

The Cocoa Trees have launched Fazer Angry Bird Sweets, Lollipops, Chocolate Eggs and Chewing gums into the market.

• Angry Bird Lollipop: Super popular Fazer Angry Birds have now wrapped themselves in lollipop costumes. The three fruity flavoured, groovy looking lollipops have a sudden surprise hidden inside. The Angry Bird Lollipops are available in three flavours strawberry, pear and cola. Available at Rs.290 for 120gm.
• Angry Bird Chewing Gum: The super popular Fazer Angry Birds are now also chewing gums! Tooth-friendly chewing gums come in four flavours, summer, strawberry and cool, refreshing eucalyptus. Available at Rs.495 for 70 gm. 
• Angry Bird Chocolate Eggs: Fazer Angry Birds Surprise Eggs are really big milk chocolate eggs with surprises in every chocolate egg. Available at Rs. 795 for 100 gm.
• Angry Bird Candy Bags: Fazer Angry Bird Candy Bags contains 5 unique characters and shapes, from strawberry Red Bird, to the crunchy and chewy caramel eggs. The colourful and tangy birds taste like familiar strawberry, spiky lime, delightful orange, wild berries, and punchy cola with a fresh lemon filling. Available at Rs. 190 for 120 gm.

Fazer Angry Bird Collection is now available at all The Cocoa Trees outlets, two stores in Mumbai and one at Mumbai airport, three in Pune, one in Delhi T3 domestic airport and Goa.

Clayspray Chocotherapy Pure Cocoa Mask

While this one's made for the face, I have little doubt that most of it is going to go in my mouth if I ever lay hands on it. I'm pretty sure the laying my hands on it bit will never happen because this damn thing costs INR 6070! So, basically this is a resentment post. But oh ye, the rich amongst us, you ought to try it.

Why? Because the Clayspray Chocotherapy, a mask for the face and body, is pure chocolate Emulsion with natural mineral water. Imagine smearing pure cocoa on yourself and getting all those amino acids, proteins and minerals. The product serves as a moisturizing and soothing treatment, which is also revitalizing and energizing.

And if you don't buy into all that froufrou, think of it as an expensive way of improving your mood, reducing stress and fatigue. And hey, if can be used on the hair too.

Buy it at: JCKRC Spa Destination Pvt. Ltd., Tel: +91-22-27757532

Price: Rs. 6070/-

Valor Dark Chocolate 70% Cocoa

I love dark chocolate, but I usually draw the line at 70% and am not among those chocolate snobs who pretend to enjoy 98% cacao in their bar. I find it way too bitter and much prefer a 60-70% concentration. Always on the lookout for new brands to try, I picked up this bar of 70% dark chocolate by Spanish chocolate brand, Valor, literally meaning value. The brand aims at to offer... ahem... 'adult pleasure' through its chocolates.

Established in 1881 by one Don Valeriano López Lloret on the small scale, the business was formalised in 1916 and there on, Valor steadily grew in size and the variety offered to their patrons. The company celebrated 125 years in 2006 and through their franchise model, have taken business to a new level. Their current range of products include chocolate bars, chocolate bonbons, hot chocolate, bakery products and gourmet chocolate.

The 70% dark chocolate bars are something of a specialty and is available in different flavours like mint, toffee, pear, banana, coffee, orange, etc. However, I picked the plain dark chocolate as a first preference and a measure of the true taste of the chocolate. The chocolate isn't too smooth, but that's something I think is true of all chocolates with a cocoa concentration of 70% and more. It has a fair taste, but not much aroma and will probably taste well when paired with other things. It is a no frills chocolate and easily passable. However, I'd love to try some of their unconventional flavours like Banana Dark Chocolate.


RATING: 2.5/5

Droste Holland Almond Milk Chocolate XXL Pastille

With a heritage of over 150 years, Droste is one of the better known names in the world of chocolate and confectionery. I first came across it at The Cocoa Trees, a multi-brand specialty chocolate store in Mumbai. However, a good friend and colleague brought me this to sample and review for Chocosophy.

Droste was founded by Gerardus Johannes Droste in 1863 in Haarlem, The Netherlands. The company prominently sold drinking chocolate in the beginning and its ads with a lady holding a Droste pack and a mug on a tray become very popular. The ad shows the Droste pack with the same image as the ad, creative a visual recursive effect. This effect was named the Droste effect after this company and its iconic ads.

Over the years, the brand changed many hands and is currently owned by German company, Hosta. However, it continues to operate as an independent business unit ans retains the famous brand name. Droste's products can be found in over 60 countries. One of its most famous products is the Pastille. A pastille or troche is a type of sweet (or medicinal pill) made of a thick liquid that has been solidified and is meant to be consumed by light chewing and allowing it to dissolve in the mouth. In this context, it means a round centre-filled chocolate, usually sectioned into four quarters.

The Droste Holland Almond Milk Chocolate XXL Pastille weighs about 50 g, and costs INR 125 per piece. As you see in the picture, it doesn't have much of a 'filling', but has abundant almonds. The milk chocolate, with 34% cocoa, is smooth but much too sweet and of a rather mediocre flavour. It is quite forgettable and I'd even go as far as to say our Indian Cadbury chocolates fare better if sweet, milky chocolate is what you want. This one's an easy miss.

RATING: 2/5

Chocolat Stella Dark Chocolate with Stevia Extract

Nearly 70 years in existence, Chocolat Stella, AKA Chocolat Bernrain is one of the better known makers of Swiss chocolate. Started by the Muller family, the business continues to be run by the third generation. The Switzerland-based company is renowned for organic, fair trade, Kosher and functional chocolate specialities and today, sells a vast range of products. Widely exported, you will find a few bars of Stella at almost every store that stocks imported chocolate.

I was curious about this brand for a while, but it was only after I spotted this variety that I felt compelled to pick it up. I've tried several sugar free chocolates, like Bernique and La Confiteria Delaviuda but none with this interesting herb as a sugar substitute. For those who don't know, here's some Wiki tidbit about Stevia:

Stevia is is a herb from the sunflower family, native to subtropical and tropical regions from western North America to South America. The species Stevia rebaudiana, commonly known as sweetleaf, sweet leaf, sugarleaf, or simply stevia, is widely grown for its sweet leaves. As a sweetener and sugar substitute, stevia's taste has a slower onset and longer duration than that of sugar, and some of its extracts may have a bitter or licorice-like aftertaste at high concentrations. With its steviol glycoside extracts having up to 300 times the sweetness of sugar, stevia has attracted attention with the rise in demand for low-carbohydrate, low-sugar sweeteners.

Stevia is commonly sold at chemists and supermarkets, but is not as popular as artificial sweeteners. I remember tasting stevia leaves at a herb garden in Kerala and was very curious to know how it would taste in chocolate. The Stella dark chocolate (with 53% cocoa) with stevia extract didn't seem to me any different from other sugar-free chocolates and I was most disappointed by the after taste. Perhaps I was hoping a herb would have none of those unpleasant things chemical sweeteners do. But as the Wiki entry suggests, high concentrations may leave an aftertaste. The chocolate wasn't very smooth either, so there was little in terms of saving grace. I much prefer and recommend Bernique for sugar free chocolates, if that's what you must have.

Don't bother spending INR 345 for a 100 g bar, although you might want to try their other 'sugary' varieties as I will too.

RATING: 2.5/5

Green & Black's Organic Butterscotch Milk Chocolate

Since my one true chocolate aficionado friend mentioned Green & Black's  to me as one of the best chocolates in the world (really, no exaggeration), I've been looking high and low for this UK-based brand. I came across three precious bars at a local supermarket in my area, which stocks rare, imported chocolate. The shopkeeper gave me a knowing smile, when I lunged at the bars at the display window and said, "These bars come very rarely, and when they do they get picked up immediately...just like this." I gave him an embarrassed smile and paid for this lovely bar of Green & Black's Organic Butterscotch Milk Chocolate.

The brand has been around for quite some time and was founded in 1991 by Craig Sams, founder of Whole Earth, an organic foods company and his journalist wife, Josephine Fairley. The brand is committed to making chocolate from organic cocoa and with Fairtrade practices. It has won a number of awards, most notably Britain's first Fairtrade Chocolate for their Maya Gold bar in 1994. The brand has since grown immensely and now makes a range of products including ice creams and baking products. It was bought over by Cadbury, now Mondelez International in 2005, but they run it as a separate business, keeping Green & Black's ethos intact.

Green & Black is most famous for their vast range of chocolates, and I now know why. The Green & Black's Organic Butterscotch Milk Chocolate is easily one of the most amazing chocolates I've ever eaten, thanks to the distinct taste of organic molasses. Butterscotch toffee is usually made with just butter and sugar, but this brand uses raw molasses in its recipe, which makes it so different. The other organic ingredients include Raw Cane Sugar, Whole Milk Powder, Cocoa Mass, Cocoa Butter, Butterscotch, and Vanilla Extract.

While the chocolate is smooth, the unrefined ingredients give it a 'raw'ish flavour, something our tongues have gotten unused to because of the refined foods that surround us. The bits of butterscotch toffee are interspersed beautifully in the chocolate and proffer a strong flavour. I wonder how wonderful their dark chocolate variants will be, when their milk chocolate is so glorious. Ah well, I guess I'll just have to wait for whatever lot my local supermarket brings in next. But if and when you spot a bar of G&B's, you must try it. It costs INR 352 for a 100 g bar, but it's so worth it!


RATING: 4/5

Oreo Double Delight

Whatever they do to the Oreo, I'm going to think they are overrated. Since the world-famous brand was launched in India in 2011 (almost a 100 years after it was first created in 1912, FYI), it has been aggressively promoted. So despite tough competition from brands like Sunfeast, Britannia and Parle, Cadbury India (owned by Mondelez International; previously Kraft Foods) has managed to keeping the sales figures up In India.

While the original Oreo recipe calls for dark chocolate sandwich cookies with vanilla creme in between, it brings out variations from time to time. The dark chocolate cream Oreo is easily available and I even remember seeing a blueberry/ blackcurrant variety at a store. Speaking of varieties, I spotted this one recently. The Double Delight Oreo has two kinds of cream  - chocolate and peanut butter.

Both are equally lame. The chocolate cream tastes nothing like chocolate, so with the peanut butter cream. It has a vague sort of flavour and the plain vanilla is definitely better. The cookie remains the same; made of dark chocolate and the familiar logo-flowers-dots-and-dashes design. This version has been made and exported from Singapore, and Oreo releases such limited edition flavours the world over from time to time.

The 137 g pack costs INR 65, and definitely something you can give a miss. Unless, of course, you are among the Oreo fanatics who make it the highest selling biscuit in the whole world.

Chew on this:If every Oreo Biscuit ever made were stacked on top of each other, the pile would reach to the moon and back more than five times!

RATING: 2.5/5

Ritter Sport Mini Bunte Vielfalt

Once you've tasted this popular German brand of chocolate, it is impossible to not keep going back to it. My first two 'encounters' with Ritter Sport were memorable with Marzipan scoring 3 and Whole Hazelnuts scoring 3.5 and I couldn't wait to taste the many other flavours the brand makes. This assorted pack called Bunte Vielfalt, which is 'colourful variety' in German was the perfect option.

The pack offers seven of their 25+ varieties and includes Fine Milk Chocolate, Butter Biscuit, Hazelnuts, Yogurt, Cornflakes, Praline and Marzipan and may I say they're all fantastic. What I like about is the brand is the complete lack of fuss and focus on quality. Their simple packaging design in bright colours and robust flavours underlines this.

Of the seven, I found the Yogurt flavoured chocolate the best with the slightly sour filling complementing the sweet milk chocolate oh-so-brilliantly. The next in line was the Butter Biscuit. Might I use Amul's line to describe this one? The biscuit was 'utterly butterly delicious'. Cornflakes came a close third with its perfect crunchiness. The Praline, Hazelnut, Marzipan, and Fine Milk chocolates fared similarly with no real surprises. However, the chocolate quality was ace for them all.

The 150g pack with nine pieces costs just INR 325, and is imported by Dugar Overseas. It is easily available at all fancy supermarkets and is a great buy.

RATING: 3.5/5

Lindt Excellence Orange Intense

Recently, a reader of my blog commented on one of the blog posts here saying he is anti Lindt because he thinks they are overrated. I couldn't disagree more. There's a reason... no, plenty of reasons why Lindt is one of the best chocolate makers in the world. And God knows the competition is tough with new chocolate brands being rolled out pretty much every month. Lindt has made and continues to make the finest chocolates in the Swiss tradition.

In the past, I've reviewed a number of Lindt variants on Chocosophy, including Chilli, Wasabi, Sea Salt and Premium Dark.and given that Lindt has an amazing range, I shall continue to feature them. This time, as you can see, is Orange Intense's turn. Of Lindt's flavoured chocolates, Chili and Wasabi are my absolute favourites, not so much orange. Frankly, I've never understood the pairing. However, orange chocolate is a very popular flavour, much like the perplexing mint chocolate, and Lindt would have to cater to the demand.

The dark chocolate (a disappointing 48%) comprises orange slivers and almonds to give it a lovely texture. However, the taste is not as 'intense' as it promises to be and I'd have liked it to be zestier. But it is much better than the Cadbury Silk Orange Peel (shit) they make around here. Since the smoothness of all Lindt chocolates is incomparable, I won't say much else about it. If you like Orange-flavoured chocolate, you'll enjoy this, but this is certainly not one of my favourites.

A 100g bar is priced somewhere around INR 230-250, depending on the retailer and it is available pretty much at every decent department or confectionery store.

RATING: 3/5