Orange and Spice - Fairtrade The Co-Operative

Exams! The Evening Standard had a piece on exams yesterday which brought back such fond memories. Yeah, right. Fond is probably not the right word. The person writing this piece actually said that learning Latin was easy. Well, let me tell you she was wrong. I remember trying to learn Latin and amo, amas, amat, amamas, amatis, amant was the best I could do. I can also decline (is that correct?) Bellum.....but let's not go there. Typically I only remembered the words for love and war! Love em or hate em we all have to take exams at some stage in our lives. Whilst we all have to do them I still remember them with dread. I can remember falling asleep on my bed and waking up from a dream not knowing what day it was and almost believing that I had slept through them all! I can still summon up that feeling of panic! If you're in the middle of taking your exams good luck and fingers crossed for August! 


I think this is my first review of chocolate from The Co-op. In 2002 the Co-op switched their entire own brand chocolate bar range to Fairtrade. Their range is produced by Divine Chocolate, using high quality cocoa beans of Kuapa Kokoo, a co-operative of 45,000 farmers in Ghana. Click on the Kuapa KoKoo link to find out more.

Orange and Spice

The Chocolate: 98% of this product is Fairtrade using sugar from Malawi, Cocoa  Butter and Cocoa Mass from Ghana and spices from Sri Lanka. Spices include cardamon, Cinnamon and orange oil. The cocoa content is 51% which is low for a dark chocolate.

A well presented 'thin' bar of chocolate which has a good overall shine the lower cocoa content gives it a milky appearance. The chocolate melts quickly releasing the orange oil which provides a good citrus mouth feel. Initially the cocoa flavour is lost to the stronger orange and spice flavours. However, a slight 'tobacco' flavour pops through at the end.


I can't get overly excited about this bar but I'm not having any problems demolishing it! For a Fairtrade product it has to score reasonably well and 6/10 is a good score in my view competing well with the Maya Gold from Green and Blacks. Oops! I can't find the price for this bar so I'll have to update it later. Enjoy the weekend even if it is raining! 


Posted by Richard.....