Chocolove Strong Dark 70%

From the packaging I learned that this chocolate is made with African and Caribbean cocoa beans in Belgium and finished in Boulder, CO. I also learned that it’s best before September of 2007. This I find fishy, as that’s a long, long time from now but I do appreciate their effort to keep their products relatively fresh.

It also comes with a poem in the reverse side of the wrapping. Here it is:

Sonnet by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

I sat with Love upon a woodside well,
Leaning across the water, I and he;
Nor ever did he speak nor looked at me,
But touched his lute wherein was audible
The certain secret thing he had to tell:
Only our mirrored eyes met silently
In the low wave; and that sound came to be
The passionate voice I knew; and my tears fell.
And at their fall, his eyes beneath grew hers;
And with his foot and with his wing-feathers
He swept the spring that watered my heart’s drouth;
Then the dark ripples spread to waving hair,
And as I stooped, her own lips rising there
Bubbled with brimming kisses at my mouth.

He couldn’t express his love but the woman came and understood him anyway? Or is he spying on the guy he’s in love with but with another lover? Or that he likes a guy who likes the woman, who likes him?

Here’s a love poem I love:

Then, brothers, it came. Oh bliss, bliss and heaven. I lay all nagoy to the ceiling, my Gulliver on my rookers on the pillow, glazzies closed, rot open in bliss, slooshying the sluice of lovely sounds. Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh. The trombones crunched redgold under my bed, and behind my Gulliver the trumpets three-wise silverflamed, and there by the door the timps rolling through my guts and out again crunched like candy thunder. Oh, it was wonder of wonders. And then, a bird or like rarest spun heavenmetal, or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now, came the violin solo above all the other strings, and those strings were like a cage of silk round my bed. Then flute and oboe bored, like worms of like platinum, into the thick thick toffee gold and silver. I was in such bliss, my brothers.

Okay, it’s not exactly a love poem. It’s an excerpt from A Clockwork Orange. I love it because it exemplifies the power of music and the level of active interaction Alex has with it. At this point in the book Alex is pretty much incapable of love, but this is the closest he comes to it. This makes him a sympathetic character, despite the fact that he’s otherwise an atrocious rascal full of hate and rage.

Anyway, back to the chocolate. First of all, it’s absolutely wonderful that they took the time to make these chocolates nice to look at. They’re polished looking and each square has a heart mark.

They smell wonderful. There’s an overlay of bitter cocoa aroma in just the right dosage. It’s there, but on top of a promising smell of molasses and caramel. It smells warm but surrounded by sparks of pungent bitters, as if it’s keeping guard from turning mild.

It melts smoothly and effortlessly in your mouth. I see tan colors in my head eating this chocolate. There’s a hint of hazelnut, and the maple is checked by the gray element. It’s the perfect amount of bitterness- just enough to keep it interesting.

It’s slightly on the sweet side, and you do get that sugary coating in your throat. Besides that all of the other elements are balanced. It’s nutty and warm, but not mild. It melts smoothly but not saucy.

The packaging is brilliant, and reading the love poem puts you in the perfect reflective mood to eat great chocolate. It brought me to reflect on Alex. Coincidentally, Alex likes chocolate too, at least in the movie version. I wonder what kind of chocolate he would eat. Maybe the milky types to foreshadow his sweet side that comes out at the end of the book, but then again the book says nothing about him eating chocolate and the movie ends without the last chapter of the book.