"FREE CHOCOLATE BAR!" There's no words I like to hear more. The offer, dubbed a "Wee Treat" by Edinburgh-based COCO Chocolatier, was a free bar of chocolate to the Great British public during the COVID-19 Coronavirus lockdown.
The offer was available on any of their £5 bars. I chose an interesting single-origin bar that blends rhubarb and ginger with 40% Columbian milk chocolate, paid my £3.95 postage and packaging fee, and a padded envelope landed on my doorstep just a few days later.
Possibly the most fragrant delivery I've ever received, the aromas of rhubarb and ginger wafted from the sealed package.
Packaging
The very fragrant chocolate bar is wrapped in a thick paper wrapper, beautifully decorated with swirling pink and white artwork by Glasgow-based illustrator Mari Campistron.
A sticker on the front of the wrapper depicts the COCO Chocolatier logo, and lists the bar flavour, and a credit for the artwork.
On the reverse, there's a larger sticker that helps seal the packaging. it contains a brief explanation of their "art of chocolate" philosophy, and a bit about their chocolate.
Their bars use ICCO classified Fino de Aroma cacao that's grown and turned into chocolate couverture in Columbia, retaining more of the economic benefits within the country.
The ingredients and nutritional lists are printed in English, German, French, and Dutch, suggesting strong European demand for this bar.
COCO Chocolatier Rhubarb & Ginger Milk Chocolate bar ingredients:
Sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, milk powder (14%), emulsifier (non-GMO soya lecithin), natural vanilla flavour, ginger (<1%), natural rhubarb flavour. Cocoa solids: 40% minimum.
The sugar content of this bar sits at around 44%, so it's quite a sweet bar but it should also have a strong chocolatey flavour thanks to the 40% milk chocolate in the recipe.
The chocolate bar is gluten-free and suitable for vegetarians, and it may contain traces of nuts.
COCO Chocolatier Rhubarb & Ginger Milk Chocolate Review
I've already mentioned that I could smell the flavour through the postal packaging, and the aromas of rhubarb and ginger only increased as I peeled back the silver foil-backed paper.
The 40% milk chocolate bar follows a classic form, using a 24-segment mould to shape it with a mirror-like finish. A clean and crisp snap means it's a doddle to divide this bar into multiple pieces, although I can assure you that nibbling just one piece at a time is near on impossible.
Rhubarb and Ginger is a classic old-school flavour combination but yet it remains a fairly unusual flavour in chocolate. I can't get enough of rhubarb, and whenever I have rhubarb flavour foods, I want to taste the flavour clearly. All too often it's a bit muted or muddled.
Not here. The aroma of the bar is 100% rhubarb. It's so dominant that it almost masks the supporting aroma of ginger, which faintly glimmers in the background. The fragrance of the milk chocolate is powerless against the rhubarb so doesn't come through at all.
Rhubarb dominates in the flavour too. It's the only thing I can taste for a while before glimpses of the milk chocolate creep through. There are notes of bread and ginger that appear right at the end of the melt, along with a satisfying creaminess and sweetness. The rhubarb flavour dominates the aftertaste although there's a very subtle warmth from the ginger to go with it.
I love rhubarb and that's perhaps a very good thing with this bar. COCO Chocolatier certainly didn't shy away from the rhubarb flavour when they made this bar. But that's a good thing isn't it?
I'd have liked to see more of the chocolate notes come through and perhaps a little more of the ginger flavour but even so, there is no mistaking this is a rhubarb and ginger milk chocolate bar, and that's the way it should be.
COCO Chocolatier Rhubarb & Ginger Milk Chocolate Bar Review
RRP: £5.00 | COCO Chocolatier | Shop now
Make no mistake, this bar is all about the rhubarb, and it's not ashamed to loudly shout about it. Punchy rhubarb, gently warming ginger, and the sweet creaminess of the milk chocolate all make this bar a must for rhubarb lovers.
Where to Buy Online
You can buy the Rhubarb and Ginger milk chocolate bar from COCO Chocolatier online (£5). It's also widely available online at independent stockists. I found it available at Black Bough (£4) and at Feather and Nest (£4.95).
Which other COCO Chocolatier bars should I try next? Let me know your favourites in a comment below.
