Dolfin Milk Green Tea and Jasmine from Morocco
Another day, another Dolfin. Now, if I lived in Monkey Mia and this was a wildlife website, that sentence would have an entirely different meaning (at least if it was heard, rather than read). However, seeing as I’m currently not anywhere near Western Australia and squirrels are about as close to wildlife as I’ve come in the past year, this review can only be about chocolate. Straying from my dark chocolate inclinations, I picked up Dolfin’s “Milk Green Tea and Jasmine from Morocco” 30g bar. The first thing I noticed upon opening the package was how incredibly strong the tea smell was; it overpowered any chocolate aroma to the point that I was a tad wary about tasting it. Adding to my hesitancy were the seemingly hundreds of little black speckles of tea that I could clearly see in the chocolate, and yet when I finally did taste a square I discovered that the tea and jasmine were perfectly balanced with the sweetness and creaminess of the milk chocolate. Although the tea dominates the chocolate in the aroma department, the first flavor to hit the tongue is definitively the sweet milkiness of the chocolate, with the lightly floral undertones of the jasmine and tea deepening as the chocolate melted to provide a delicious lingering flavor that was neither too sweet nor too tannic.
The fact that the bar uses tea leaves rather than a distilled essence gives it a distinct textural element; while the chocolate itself is smooth it is at all times mixed with tiny grains of tea leaves that, while not exactly leading to a need to chew, are certainly noticeable. As someone who always tends towards dark chocoalte, I was surprised to find myself thinking that milk chocolate may, in fact, be the perfect conduit for tea-as-confectionary, as its sweetness balances the tannic flavors of the tea in a manner that the intensity of dark chocoalte may not be well suited to do. Certainly, most of the other tea-infused and flavored chocolate bars I’ve seen have used milk chocolate, but I do remember coming across a dark chocoalte version some months back that I now feel an urge to track down. Be assured that if I am successful in my search, I’ll duly report back on my findings.
