I've noticed a few times when I've accidentally contaminated
my chocolate with some freshly ground coffee from my
coffee grinder, that it is a pleasing combination. Whymper
(in his famous book) mentions the use of coffee as a flavor
additive to chocolate. He recommends its use at levels
below which it is discernable as coffee, of course, but I
suppose the more richly burnt notes of coffee mesh well
with certain chocolate flavors which would make it a good
additive (perhaps as a substitute for over-roasting the
cacao beans -- thus giving you the best of both worlds).

I haven't tried any of the coffee-flavored, high-cacao-content
chocolates. I don't want to waste time sampling the losers.
Who makes the best ones?

My favorite is the valrhona
#120 - Cafe Noir (3kg/6.6 lbs.) - New! @ $63.67

A dark chocolate blended with arabica coffee.

Truly wonderful.
I use Sparrow to buy my chocolates.
http://www.chocolatebysparrow.com/default.php4



"Mark Thorson" > wrote in message
...

> I haven't tried any of the coffee-flavored, high-cacao-content
> chocolates. I don't want to waste time sampling the losers.
> Who makes the best ones?
>
>
>

marian wrote:

> My favorite is the valrhona
> #120 - Cafe Noir (3kg/6.6 lbs.) - New! @ $63.67
>
> A dark chocolate blended with arabica coffee.

That sounds good. Valrhona is my favorite dark chocolate.
Today, I picked up some Newman's Own and Scharffen
Berger coffee-flavored dark chocolate bars. The cocoa
solids content of the Newman's wasn't stated, but it must
have been quite low. The bar was way too sweet for me.
After one bite, I threw it away.

The Scharffen Berger was almost as bad. At first,
I thought it had granulated sugar in it. It had some
sort of grit. It turned out to be coffee grounds!
They just put ground coffee in their chocolate.
Whoever formulated this bar was an idiot.

I haven't mail-ordered any chocolate before, but
I guess that's the only way I'll get to try Valrhona's
coffee-flavored chocolate. I don't think I care
to order 3 kilograms of it, though.

In article >, Mark Thorson wrote:
> That sounds good. Valrhona is my favorite dark chocolate.
> [...]
>
> I haven't mail-ordered any chocolate before, but I guess that's the
> only way I'll get to try Valrhona's coffee-flavored chocolate. I
> don't think I care to order 3 kilograms of it, though.

They've also released this chocolate in the 100g bar form, in packaging
similar to the Le Noir/Le Noir Amer line. It has a greenish brown
color stripe, as Le Noir Amer has a red one. Web sites such as
chocosphere.com carry it. This will obviously be much cheaper than
ordering 3 kg, though if you ordered from the Web, shipping would still
make it expensive unless you ordered other things at the same time.

Are you, by chance, in the SF North Bay area? (Other people I know with
sonic.net addresses are from there.) If so, there have *got* to be some
places that carry the new Valrhona bars not too far from you.

Blake

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I really like Michel Cluizel's Amer au Café which is a 60% bar. I received
it recently in a Chocosphere order, and it's definitely among my favorites.

"Mark Thorson" > wrote in message
...
> I've noticed a few times when I've accidentally contaminated
> my chocolate with some freshly ground coffee from my
> coffee grinder, that it is a pleasing combination. Whymper
> (in his famous book) mentions the use of coffee as a flavor
> additive to chocolate. He recommends its use at levels
> below which it is discernable as coffee, of course, but I
> suppose the more richly burnt notes of coffee mesh well
> with certain chocolate flavors which would make it a good
> additive (perhaps as a substitute for over-roasting the
> cacao beans -- thus giving you the best of both worlds).
>
> I haven't tried any of the coffee-flavored, high-cacao-content
> chocolates. I don't want to waste time sampling the losers.
> Who makes the best ones?