Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Chuao Chocolate Review


Last week, I received three beautiful bars of Chuao (pronounced Chew-Wow) gourmet chocolate to review. I decided to take them to school, where I (of course) found plenty of volunteers to help sample them. No one I knew had ever heard of Chuao before, which is interesting, because they have unique products with extraordinary flavors.  For example, the "Potato Chip" bar is everything it says it is, "Crisp kettle-cooked potato chips flavor shines through the hint of sea salt and milk chocolate." 


It was Maren's favorite, and Kendall said, "Mmmm...Mm...Mhmmhmm!  Love the crunch and it has a good taste of sweet and salty--That is amazing chocolate, and the aftertaste is a potato chip!"  All but one co-worker liked this flavor a lot, too.

I'm not really a fan of honey, but I do love my dark chocolate, so I was adventurous and tried the Honeycomb all natural bar, described as "luscious amber honey carmelized into crisp bits and enrobed in dark chocolate." (Doesn't that just sound delicious?!  As a teacher, as well as a chocolate lover, I admire the thoughtful word choice of the Chuao marketers :)  This flavor turned out to be my favorite of the three! The honey flavor is very subtle (most of my testers couldn't even taste it), and I loved the creamy texture of the chocolate.

For the "wild side of chocolate," there's the Firecracker bar!  I'd never heard of chipotle peppers in chocolate, so I was bravely curious. While I like chipotle peppers in some foods, I wasn't a fan of the spiciness on my tongue. On the bright side, it fades within a minute or so. However, the chipotle bar also has a delightful little surprise that I hadn't expected (because I didn't read the package first)--Moments after biting in, I felt popping and crackling in my mouth! Popping chocolate is fun! 

Everyone at work  agreed that they couldn't see themselves craving the chipotle bar for the pepper taste, but they would for the novelty of the fun sensory experience. I also shared it with my Difference Makers, who enjoyed being dramatic about the "hotness" but kept putting pieces in their mouths because they loved the popping; it was pretty cute.


Ravishing Rocky Road and Maple Bacon are just two more delicious-sounding flavors in the Chuao's chocolate bar lineup. I didn't get to taste those, but the Maple Bacon is on my Christmas shopping list for a certain bacon-lover I know! They also have many other decadent offerings like bonbons, bark, etc.

I appreciate that all-natural ingredients are used by Chuao's Master Chocolatier, Michael.  The chocolate bars I sampled were all gluten-free, and I could pronounce every ingredient on their labels, which is always nice. You can find Chuao products at Whole Foods, Crate and Barrel, and select Target stores, among others.

It's not too late to enter Chuao's Sweet Makeover on Facebook. What are you waiting for?!

Prizes include:
  • a $1000 designer shopping spree
  • A one-year subscription to Birchbox ($120 value)
  • A Broscato Vibrastrait flat iron ($150 value)
  • Philosophy Miracle Worker Collection ($190 value)
  • Clarisonic Mia2 Skin Cleansing System ($150 value)
  •  Delicious, handcrafted, gourmet Chuao chocolate ($180 value)
Sweet Makeover ends December 17th.

As mentioned previously, I received products in exchange for my honest opinion.

2 comments:

  1. Somehow I missed this post and now I want to try them all. They all sound amazing.....and well, the Firecracker one sounds yummy but only for a novelty type of thing.

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  2. I'll be scouting these out as stocking stutters for my mom. Loved the review! :)

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