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food review: sweet riot cacao nibs
We received a solicitation in email from a chocolate company called sweetriot, informing us that they were expanding their market to Boston and asking us if we’d be interested in trying out some of their product. Since our mommas didn’t raise no dummies we said, “Free chocolate? Sure thing!“
Sweetriot calls itself a “mission-based company,“ which means that it embraces a crunchy sort of philosophy. They say that they want to be socially responsible and build a better world through their business. More specifically: “To create a more just and celebrated multicultural world for our next generation.“ To that end, they’ve formed partnerships with several community-based nonprofits that focus on young people, the arts, and ethical business practices. Imagine them as the “Benn & Jerry’s” of chocolate.
Okay, but is the chocolate any good. In a word: Yes. But it’s not your daddy’s chocolate. Their product line consists of cacao nibs covered in chocolate, varying in the amount of chocolate and other ingredients. For one thing, it’s all natural, dairy free, kosher, gluten-free, and free of genetically modified organisms. There are no artificial ingredients. The most unusual ingredient is soy lecithin. Lecithin is a natural emulsifier and in cooking you most often find it in eggs. (It’s what makes mayonnaise shelf stable.) In this case, it’s lecithin from soy beans.
But cacao nibs? The cacao (pronounced ka-COW) is the tree from which cacao beans are harvested. These eventually become chocolate, after much processing and the addition of sugar and other ingredients, but in the beginning they are nibs, the pieces of peeled, unfermented bean. They contain no sugar and are about 45% fat, the good natural organic kind. Chocolate, cocoa, and cocoa butter are all products of nibs.
As I said, these cacao nibs are lightly roasted and coated in a dark chocolate covering. Their “flavor 50” product uses a 50% dark chocolate covering they say is good for milk chocolate fans. The “flavor 65” product is 65% dark chocolate that they say is for true chocoholics. And the “flavor 70” is, you guessed it, 70% dark chocolate with a little espresso added for a taste like your favorite mocha latte.
Now these don’t come cheap. They sell them in 1 ounce tins, and a package of 12 tins is regularly $72 with an online special price of $47.99. Wow! Even at the sale price, that’s $4 per ounce. This is definitely a boutique and chi-chi indulgence. Mission-based business with social responsibility comes at a steep price.
So what does the “costs more per ounce than a gallon of gas” cacao nibs (or “peaces” as they call them) taste like? It tastes like chocolate. Very good chocolate. The nibs themselves are small, about pea-sized, and the texture is like that of a Nestle Crunch bar. A little snap, but not too hard. And because they’re tiny nuggets you can eat just a few of the nibs and you’re satisfied, while a 1-ounce bar would disappear in a munch, but these very nice tins—like a cross between a Pez dispenser and an Altoids tin—would store nicely in your purse (I know my audience!) or desk drawer for when you’re having a bad day or simply have a craving.
Now I like chocolate, but I’m not the expert in this family, so I turned to Melanie for her impressions. She says it compares favorably to the best high-end chocolates out there, and since she prefers dark chocolate to milk chocolate it’s right up her alley. It has dark, rich chocolate flavor and will appeal to those who wouldn’t pass by a beautiful display case of expensive confections at your local chocolaterie without sampling just one.
Would I buy these for myself? Probably not, but then a nice Snickers bar tames my sweet tooth. But I could imagine myself buying a package of a dozen tins for someone’s birthday or Christmas. And I know they would be very much appreciated. (You won’t be surprised to find them in, among many other stores, Whole Foods markets nationwide.)
COMMENTS
Note to self: do not leave candy on Dom’s desk if you want to come back a week later and have more.
Posted by
on 08/20/06 at 07:16 PMA week! Who expects four ounces of chocolate to last a week?
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