I must admit that it was the vivid colours on this bar that drew me in, closely followed by its unusual flavour combination.
The medley of dark chocolate, lemon and green tea in this Ombar chocolate bar from Mood Foods is not a common one, which made it perfect for my shopping basket and ideal for talking about on Chocolatier.co.uk.
Packaging
The 35g bar from Ombar may well be small but it's ideal as a snack or to share with a partner or friend over a cup of coffee.
A brown paper wrapper uses green and yellow text to illustrate its lemon and green tea flavour combination, while gold foiled text proudly highlights its use of Ecuadorian cacao.
The reverse of the wrapper briefly explains Ombar's proposition in the marketplace, alongside the bar's ingredients and nutritional information.
Ombar Organic Raw Chocolate with Lemon and Green Tea 35g ingredients:
Raw cacao, coconut sugar, cocoa butter, lemon powder (3.3%), green tea matcha (2%), lemon oil (0.04%). Minimum cocoa solids 60%.
Around 28% of the bar is made up of sugars, and the 35g bar contains 205 kcal. It's a certified vegan chocolate bar that is made using fair trade and certified organic ingredients. As you can see from the short ingredients list above, there's no artificial preservatives in the recipe, and it makes use of unrefined coconut sugar and unroasted Equadorian cacao that is fair trade to the Fair for Life standard (44%).
Lemon & Green Tea Raw Chocolate Review
Opening the paper wrapper I was pleased to find a gold-foiled paper wrapper surrounding the chocolate bar rather than a plastic film wrapper.
Peeling this back revealed a dark chocolate bar, pre-portioned into six segments. A lovely swirl pattern radiated from the Ombar logo that appears on one of those segments. Clean snaps into the six segments was a promising sign.
Surprisingly, the initial aroma wasn't one of lemon nor green tea, nor was it of dark chocolate. Instead, I clearly picked up notes of coconut, alongside a bitterness that sat behind. All else failed to shine through.
It was a similar story when it came to the taste, where one flavour completely dominated the others. Biting into this bar, I was hit with a bitter citrus flavour hat grew stronger and stronger. I prayed for sweetness to swoop in to counter the bitterness, but it failed to materialise.
The matcha green tea was completely lost to the lemon powder and oil, which itself was more bitter than zingy and tangy. The flavour of the cacao was masked by the taste of lemon and a subtle hint of coconut, but may well have contributed to the overly bitter taste to the bar. It was hard to tell.
The bitter lemon continued to dominate into the aftertaste, leaving all other flavours behind once again.
Overall, I found the bar far too bitter for my liking and, despite being a tiny 35g bar, it was a mammoth task to finish it. The flavour combination sounded promising and perhaps in a white or milk chocolate bar, it might work very well. But against the backdrop of dark chocolate, there was too much bitterness and not enough creaminess or sweetness to save it. The lemon overpowered the delicate flavour of matcha green tea and, to a large extent, the raw cacao. I would have preferred the lemon to take more of a back seat role to allow the green tea matcha to come through, or at least for the bitterness to be curbed in some way.
The Ombar Lemon & Green Tea bar is available to buy direct, at Amazon here°, at Planet Organic here, and at The Raw Chocolate Shop here, priced at around £1.99 per 35g bar.
Have you tried the Ombar Lemon & Green Tea vegan chocolate bar? What did you think of it? Let me know in the comments below.
Ombar Lemon & Green Tea Raw Chocolate Bar Review
RRP: £1.99 | Ombar | Shop now
An unusual sounding bar that's vegan friendly, dairy-free, fair trade, and organic. But, the lemon adds an unpleasant bitterness and masks the green tea. A subtle coconut aroma interferes with the flavour too.
