Sugar Savvy

Oh, woe is me! Why did I only discover that a local cafe stocks several unique chocolate products but a month before I leave my town? The glass-half-full perspective would celebrate that I made the discovery at all and that, having done so, I now have another New York City destination to add to my list of prospective candy stops. The chocolate that I fell upon in this fortuitous/sad situation is made by verē, based in New York. The name means “real” in Latin and, according to their website, the company uses sustainably grown and pesticide-free cocoa beans, as well as a minimum of sugar so as to “present chocolate in its purest form.” While perusing the website I also found out that, every Friday from noon to 6pm, visitors to verē’s New York store can not only sample the chocolate, but peek into the working factory itself. Sounds good to me!

The bar I selected was the Banana + Macadamia Nuts Organic Chocolate Bar, made from single origin Arriba cacao beans and containing “naturally caramelized organic tropical bananas and roasted organic macadamia nuts.” I must admit to a degree of perversity in selecting this bar - I’ve always been leery of banana-flavored items because I cannot stand the artificial version, and macadamias are my least favorite nuts (although it is unpatriotic of me to say so). However, as the flavor combination was so unique, and as I felt that a company priding itself on being “real” would not use artificial banana flavoring, into my hands the bar leapt (I should also add that, weight-for-weight, this bar was more expensive than Vosges bars, but I have no desire to exercise willpower when it comes to chocolate).

Upon tasting the bar, my first thought was agreement with the package’s statement that verē makes “chocolate/not candy.” This is a 75% bar and is not overly sweet; it is not bitter, but is definitely a treat for dark chocolate lovers. The banana flavor is, moreover, surprisingly subtle, and there are no noticeable chunks of banana in the bar. My guess is that the bananas are blended into the chocolate with the macadamias (however, I did come across occasional nubbins of nuts). As a result, the flavors mix together to form a unique taste with no one flavor dominating, although at times the banana flavor did stand out from the crowd, so to speak. The fact that the banana and macadamias neither hogged the spotlight nor detracted from the complexity of the chocolate itself made this bar a big hit in my book. The only other distinctive feature I’d like to make note of is the bar’s texture; it was quite grainy, and I am not sure whether this is a characteristic of the chocolate itself or results from the blended-in banana and macadamias. However, this did not take away from my enjoyment in the slightest.

The cafe I bought this from had only one other flavor - Cayenne + Cacao nibs - which has merely made me all the more determined to make it to the storefront so that I can pick up the Raspberry + Lemon and Espresso + Anise. Fingers crossed!