October 23rd: Lindt Hot Mango

Kcal 210 Fat 17.0g Fat(sats) 10.0g Carbs 20.0g (per 45.0g)

Lindt Chilli bars have a habit of scoring quite highly on the ChocolateMission rating system so as you can imagine I was pretty excited when Cin from Foodstufffinds kindly sent me along this Lindt Hot Mango to review. Cin described this to me as her favourite Lindt Chilli chocolate so given this big build up I was expecting quite a lot. Produced in Germany (quelle surprise!!) this bar came described as 'dark chocolate with a dark chocolate mousse and mango and cayenne filling'. If you fancy swotting up on your Cayenne chilli pepper knowledge (Geek!!) I suggest you head HERE, I swear I didn't find that page interesting .... honest ;)

The bar came in a 150.0g format that was split into 12 separate blocks. In truth I thought the blocks were a little too big for my liking, though given how beautifully the product was presented I didn't mind all that much. Unfortunately I haven't really done the outer packaging that much justice with my photo (camera was acting up! Doh!!) but it looked fantastic with its sophisticated black background and sparkling gold colours fonts. The mango and Cayenne chilli illustrations added further intrigue, whilst the picture of the chocolate provided a relatively accurate account of the actual product displaying its light coloured filling. Inside the chocolate was held within a silver branded wrapper than helped maintain a very rich smelling cocoa scent that erupted as soon as the foil was split.

As soon as I saw the 70% branding I knew this was going to be a good standard Lindt chocolate and it certainly didn't let me down. The chocolate was very forthcoming in terms of its flavours and substantiated a very strong cocoa influence as soon as the chocolate hit the tongue. As the chocolate melted and transformed into its softer liquid state the cocoa flavours became amplified yet never ventured into what I would describe as bitter. Sat at the heart of this chocolate the packaging stated that there was a dark mousse filling though frankly this I forgot all about this until I read the outer packaging again for the opening paragraph of this review. I think this was probably a consequence of both the soft melt of the actual chocolate and the very unique tasting mango and chilli filling which dominated the taste as soon as it came into contact with my mouth. The mango and chilli filling was one of the most unique things I have ever tasted in a chocolate bar and combined a wonderfully juicy, fruity taste with a hot chilli bite in its aftertaste. The fruit element was well balanced with it's sweet, yet quite tart, almost sour flavours; whilst the chilli really came to life in the latter stages of the taste providing a peppery flavour influence and delightful warming feeling to the mouth. With the taste being so lively just a few of these large blocks provided a barrage of flavours and made for both a satisfying and fulfilling chocolate.

Overall this was yet another very tasty chilli chocolate from Lindt, so much so that I am starting to believe that they are real experts when it comes to handling this very volatile ingredient. With this bar Lindt have managed to bring the best out of two very variable tasting influences. The mango could have easily have been too sour, whilst the chilli could easily have been over powering or too weak. At the end of the day I think that Lindt combined both almost perfectly with each contributing equally and incrementally to the superb tasting dark chocolate that provided a wonderful flavour base from the outset. If you like your chilli flavoured chocolates this is a bar you should really be thinking of tracking down. By the looks of it this isn't a bar that is available in the UK but I am sure if you do a little searching it is one that you can find quite easily from the likes of Dean-German-Grocery etc. This is yet another Lindt bar that comes with a ChocolateMission recommendation.

8.7 out of 10