Schoggi Grand Cru 65% cacao

Pleasant. Sweet (for a dark chocolate). Pure, clean note, no side flavors other than vanilla. 7.7

This bar's ingredients are listed as: Cacao, cocoa butter, sugar, vanilla, lecithin. I should pay closer attention to this list.  When the list is longer than "cacao, cocoa butter, sugar" you may get characteristics of significant note in the taste of the bar.  This bar adds in vanilla, and there is a vanilla flavor noticeable. But is it really needed here? Lecithin's Wikipedia entry lists these reasons for why it might be used: "In confectionery, it reduces viscosity, replaces more expensive ingredients, controls sugar crystallization and the flow properties of chocolate, helps in the homogeneous mixing of ingredients, improves shelf life for some products, and can be used as a coating." Replaces more expensive ingredients? I don't like the sound of that.

This bar comes from a confectionery with stores in the city. They mostly sell truffles and such, and this visit was the first time I noticed a pure chocolate bar on their shelf. It's a good chocolate, but I wonder what it would taste like without he vanilla and the lecithin.

schoggi.us