June 3rd: Cadbury Bournville

Kcal 220 Fat 11.8g Fat(sats) 7.3g Carbs 26.6g

This bar is commonly regarded as a 'dark chocolate for beginners'... because of this from the start I was hardly expecting a rich 70% cocoa Lindt like experience. My only previous experience with the Bournville range only went as far as my childhood memories of the small Bournville squares always being the last ones to go from the christmas Cadbury 'Roses' assortment tin...not all that favourable then!

The bar came in an adequately substantial six block 49g serving. It was enclosed in a nice looking red foil wrapper with gold writing; unfortunately the bar itself wasnt as smartish in appearance and had alot of scratches and 'blooming' which you can see represented in the above picture. The foil wrapper ensured the bar retained a freshness meaning that its aroma was quite strong upon opening. The smell itself was pretty poor and not all the appertising - at first an resonable cocoa emerged, though unfortunately it transformed into a rather off putting stagnant milk smell...oh dear...not nice.

Putting the first block in my mouth the first thing I detected was the the texture was slightly grainy. The block didnt melt in the mouth and disappointingly stayed as a solid lump until bitten into. The texture wasnt the best and was akin to the lower end of the market cheaper chocolates.

Looking at the ingredients on the back of pack the first two components read as sugar and cocoa. Upon tasting it was very obvious that the sugar ingredient was far more prevalent as the flavour was very sweet for dark chocolate. The cocoa solids level in the bar are indicated as 39% which is significantly lower than you get in most dark chocolate bars. Thats not to say a cocoa note wasnt detectable...it was...but was overshadowed by a more dominant sweet sugary taste which unfortunately left the overall flavour in a musky, non specific poor middle ground.

Overall it seems as if Cadbury have held back from making the bar overly dark and cocoa rooted inorder to avoid the product being too niche. Unfortunately what they seem to have amalgamated here is a particulalry bland and weak tasting chocolate that would neither appeal to a dark chocolate or milk chocolate consumer. This offering falls well below the high standards Cadbury sets itself...if they are going to cater for the dark chocolate consumer they should be braver with their product positioning and offer a product that genuinely can be credited as dark chocolate. I wouldnt really recommend this to anyone - particularly not as a starting place for the world of dark chocolate as its a poor representation of the market.

5.3 out of 10