Raven’s Range
Blather around a virtual range

I first met Hershey’s Cacao Reserve as a sample in the supermarket. They only had the dark chocolate at that time, and as with most dark chocolates, it gave me slight indigestion. Still, it was free chocolate, so I couldn’t complain. ;)

But when I was down in Redding last month, I found that there was now a milk chocolate bar, so that’s what I picked (at Rite Aid). Cacao Reserve is Hershey’s attempt at being all gourmet and posh, so I was curious to see what they came up with. I have to admit that even now, after ten years in the country, I have a hard time thinking of Hershey’s as “real” chocolate, so I came to the bar more than just a little prejudiced.

I was very pleasantly surprised.

The packaging consists of a cardboard wrapper, the color of dark cafe au lait, which is opened by tearing off a perforated tab. On the front is the chocolate logo along with a picture of a cocoa bean on a blue panel and descriptive text such as “35% cacao” on a white panel. The impression I get is of elegance and something out of the Victorian era with the words “Signature Collection” written in script form across the bottom.

Even the spine of the bar has the same information printed on it, like a little book. I don’t necessarily like the layout, but it does match the “premium” look and feel.

The bar is 3.53 oz, 100g, which now makes three different bars of chocolate that have a different interpretation of how 100g translates into ounces. Go figure.

On the rear is the nutritional value and the following blurb:

Cacao (ka-kow)
A tropical tree that produces the beans from which chocolate is made.

For chocolate tasting tips, tasting party themes and downloadable tasting materials visit www.cacaoreserve.com.

Apart from the word “mouthfeel” which is not a word, that sounds very nice.

The ingredients were: Sugar, cocoa butter, milk, chocolate, milk fat, soy lecithin, and vanilla.

The bar claims two and a half servings, each of 200 calories with 14g (22% RDA) of fat, of which 9g is saturated (45% of the RDA) but none trans fat; it has 10mg of cholestorol, 30mg of sodium, 20g of carbohydrate (7% of the RDA), under 1g of dietary fiber (4% of the RDA), 19g of sugars and 3g of protein. It was manufactured in Germany.

For a pleasant change, the outer wrapper was not glued to the foil, so that it came off without tearing. The foil was plain silver, a little on the warm side, and the bar itself came in ten large squares, alternating between the Cacao Reserve Logo and a picture of a cocoa bean with leaf. The images were part raised, part indented. The smell was of very nice, sweet chocolate.

Just like the Ghirardelli chocolate two weeks ago, each piece was too large to just let melt and had to be split into two. There was a satisfying snap to the break and it broke cleanly. The very moment I started to taste I was delighted with how completely delicious this chocolate was. It was sweet, milky, chocolatey and didn’t leave any sugar burn at all. While I couldn’t taste either the honey or the vanilla, I could definitely taste the caramel flavor as a rich, warm syrup about halfway through.

The chocolate did melt very quickly, however, and that’s one thing on which I would fault it. Because it did, it wasn’t as satisfying as the others I have tried, while still having far and away the best flavor. The melt is velvety and smooth, but just a little too fast. Biting it was a little more satisfying, though.

So there you have it. The best for flavor, but if the melt could be slowed down it would be the best period.

But boy…did I ever enjoy Hershey’s Cacao Reserve week. ;)

The Cacao Reserve website didn’t let me actually enter any further than the splash page, so I can’t tell you if it’s any good. ;)

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