Starbucks chocolate...is it as addictive as their coffee?

Today I am tasting two dark chocolate bars by Starbucks.  I have never been able to resist their chocolate bars.  It may be because they sit directly next to the cash register at Starbucks cafe's and I have no self control, or it could be that they are always perfectly portioned (34 grams) and I can justify it. Or, more likely, it is that I love to have some chocolate with my coffee.

The two bars that I am tasting today are:

• Starbucks® Dark Chocolate, 34 grams - "sourced at origin, artisan crafted."
• Starbucks® Dark Chocolate with Starbucks VIA Ready Brew, 34 grams - "100% natural roasted instant and microground coffee blended into rich, dark chocolate."

The plain Dark Chocolate bar smells better than it tastes.  Don't get me wrong - it tastes great, but the smell is so intense and rich with aroma that I was instantly surprised by the difference in the taste when I popped it into my mouth. In fact, this chocolate smells so good, that if I ever had to give up chocolate, I could probably just smell this chocolate bar and be happy...probably.   Overall, I do like the taste.  The vanilla is apparent in the flavour and it is sweet, but chocolaty with a rich, organic flavour to it. It is just the kind of bar that I like and it holds up well to other artisan-crafted chocolate bars.

As for the Starbucks Dark Chocolate bar with VIA Ready Brew - I'm not so sure about the smell of it.  It smells like a vanilla ice cream, or perhaps a vanilla latte.  It is a strange combination of very strong vanilla and coffee aroma combined with sweetness. Once again, I am surprised by the flavour which - like the plain dark chocolate bar - is very different than the smell.  It tastes very bitter, and the coffee is strong.  Right now I hate it.  But I think to be fair, I will need to try it at a different time. This coffee bar was just too much bitterness for my taste buds after that first sweet-tasting dark chocolate bar.

Starbucks did not list the cocoa solids percentage on the packaging, but I assume the plain "Dark Chocolate" bar is somewhere in the 60% to 70% range with a lot of vanilla, which makes it seem sweeter than it is.  The coffee bar though tastes so bitter in comparison.  Unfortunately, I have waited a while now and have been drinking coffee and water to remove the taste of the other chocolate bar, and I have to admit that I still do not like the Starbucks VIA chocolate bar.  I am sorry Starbucks - I am still a loyal customer and I like one out of two of your chocolate bars, which isn't bad! The coffee bar is just too acidic and lacks that familiar sweet yet strong Starbucks coffee flavour.  I'm sure I've tasted a different coffee/chocolate bar in the past that was branded as Starbucks and it tasted better than this one.

What is very strange is the Starbucks web site.  I have gone through the site and I can not find these bars listed anywhere.  I know they are newly launched, but I can't even find one chocolate bar listing on the site, and I know for a fact that this isn't Starbucks first branded chocolate bar product.  Just recently, I tried their caramel and dark chocolate bar and loved it, and I know I've tasted the solid dark chocolate bar that they used to sell at their cafe`s.  (And since this post, I've tasted the Starbucks Milk Chocolate bar and liked it a lot).  It doesn't make sense though - it is Starbucks, the biggest coffee retail chain, so everything branded by them should be on their web site, shouldn't it?

Well, check it out for yourself: www.starbucks.com/menu/ - perhaps you can find their website information on Starbucks chocolate bars for me!

So to answer my question asked in the title of this post: is the Starbucks chocolate as addictive as their coffee?  Well, their solid dark chocolate "artisan crafted" bar may be, but their VIA ready brew coffee is better left for drinking, rather than eating.  I think I will mix the rest of this VIA bar into a hot moka drink.

Otherwise, here are the stats on the two chocolate bars that I tried today:

Starbucks® Dark Chocolate, 34 g
Starbucks Coffee Company, Seattle, WA USA
http://www.starbucks.com/
Ingredients: cacao beans, cane sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla.  May contain traces of milk and tree nuts.
Marketing on package:  "Starbucks is committed to ethical sourcing.", "sourced at origin, artisan crafted."

Starbucks® Dark Chocolate with Starbucks VIA Ready Brew, 34 g
Starbucks Coffee Company, Seattle, WA USA
http://www.starbucks.com/
Ingredients:chocolate mass, sugar, cocoa powder, cocoa butter, Starbucks® instant and microground coffee, emulsifier (soy lecithin), natural vanilla flavour.  May contain traces of peanuts, tree nuts, sesame seeds and milk.