Sunday, March 19, 2017

Underwhelming Chocolate: Coffee Thins Espresso Chocolate Squares Are A Little Out Of Balance!


The Good: Very flavorful, Affordable, Decent ingredients
The Bad: Chocolate flavor is not quite distinct enough
The Basics: Coffee Thins Espresso are all right, but not quite chocolate enough to find the right balance between the strong coffee flavor and the chocolate in each candy.


I love trying new-to-me chocolates. Sometimes, when I get the new chocolates, they are in weird sizes or shapes. In the case of Coffee Thins Espresso chocolate squares, I discovered that the chocolate squares were not actually the most common form of these chocolates. Coffee Thins Espresso came to me as a single serving, but I actually was pretty excited about the chocolate squares and they instantly reminded me of Ghirardelli chocolate squares. Coffee Thins Espresso are good, but the chocolate is comparatively unremarkable and the coffee flavor is so strong that it entirely overwhelms the chocolate flavor.

Basics

Coffee Thins Espresso chocolate squares are 1 3/4” squares of chocolate that are 3/8” thick. Each of the squares comes individually wrapped in a brown plastic wrapper with a big picture of a coffee mug on it. It is worth noting that while I usually rail against the environmental impact of such things, it is hard to imagine Coffee Thins chocolate squares not wrapped. This keeps each one clean, unmelted and intact.

Each chocolate square is a seamless square that is a milk chocolate patty with very fine lines etched into the top. In this form, the .5 oz. individually-wrapped chocolate squares, the chocolates are a cool, single serving.

Ease Of Preparation

These are candy, so preparing them is as simple as opening the plastic wrappers around the actual chocolate square one wishes to eat. There is no grand secret to eating Coffee Thins Espresso chocolate squares. That said, they do need to be kept comparatively cool or these squares will melt.

Taste

The Espresso Coffee Thins squares smell very strongly of coffee the moment they are unwrapped. The dark coffee scent is powerful and not at all sweet in the bouquet. As a result, anyone who loves coffee is likely to be instantly enticed by the aroma of the Coffee Thins Espresso.

On the flavor front, the Coffee Thins Espresso are dry and coffee flavored. The chocolate flavor is only mildly sweet, opposite the strong, dry coffee flavor of the chocolate squares. The chocolate is dark, but very waxy in its consistency. Fortunately, the strong coffee flavor overwhelms the chocolate almost instantly.

There is a very dry aftertaste to the Espresso chocolate squares that lasts for about ten minutes after one is done eating them.

Nutrition

The Espresso chocolate squares are candy, so it is tough to look at these for something nutritious and then blame them for not being healthy. Coffee Thins chocolate squares have decent ingredients, though. The primary ingredients are sugar, roasted coffee paste, and milk solids. There is nothing unpronounceable, nor unrecognizable in these candies.

A serving of the Coffee Thins Espresso chocolate squares is considered a single square. Obviously, these are not very nutritious, but they are not terrible. These are not Vegan-compliant, nor are they recommended for anyone with a nut allergy as they may contain trace amounts of tree peanuts, walnuts and hazelnuts. They are, however, marked as kosher.

Storage/Clean-up

The Coffee Thins Espresso chocolate squares remain fresh for quite some time. Given that it is chocolate, one assumes that if they are kept in a cool, dry environment they will not melt or go bad. It is hard to imagine just what it would take for these to go bad outside melting and refreezing.

As for cleanup, just throw the wrappers away in socially appropriate places, as opposed to litter. Outside that, there is no real cleanup needed, unless one is eating them in a hot environment. In that case, it is likely one would need to wash their hands. If these chocolate squares melt into most fabrics, they will stain. Getting them to melt, though, is harder than some chocolates.

Overall

Coffee Thins Espresso chocolate squares are very flavorful and nail the coffee flavor exceptionally well, but they end up as fairly average because of the much weaker chocolate flavor.

For other chocolate reviews, please check out:
Ghirardelli Mocha Chocolate Squares
Godiva Chocolate Lava Cake Dessert Truffles
Cadbury Royal Dark Creamy Mint Dark Chocolate With Creamy Mint Filling

4.5/10

For other candy reviews, please visit my Candy Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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