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Kcal 493 Fat 30.0g Fat(sats) 17.0g Carbs 57.0g (per 100.0g)Beady eyed ChocolateMission readers have been getting in touch with me for awhile now regarding the new Lindt Excellence bars that seem to have made their way to UK shores. Amongst the new offerings in the Excellence range we have the 'Lindt Excellence with a touch of Sea Salt' (See HERE), and this new Lindt Excellence Dark Caramel which I have to say I was rather excited about trying. The bar came described as 'Fine dark chocolate with crispy caramel pieces', a none to dissimilar sounding proposition to the superb Lindt Excellence Milk Caramel (See HERE). As one would expect I didn't feel all that put out having to fulfil this reader request.
Having been made aware of this bar by several readers (I believe Sam & Daisy were the first two! Well done :D ) I finally found it being stocked in my local Sainsburys where it was price aligned with the other Excellence Dark bars at £1.83. To my surprise despite the minor aesthetic changes recently made to the Excellence Milk bars recently, the packaging was styled the same as the Excellence range has been historically!? What an odd decision to update one part of the range but not the other!? Unfolded from it's silver foil confines the bar appeared fresh in state and plentiful with to it's crystallised caramel pieces.
The first thing I noticed when handling this chocolate was the real lack of cocoa scents being offered. What is usually a given with dark chocolates is that they present a forthcoming set of cocoa scents, however these were by and large missing in action aside from a smattering of chocolatey whiffs. I should have taken this as a sign of things to come, though the taste still by and large took me by surprise with it's lax flavour offerings. From the very first block being placed on my tongue I couldn't believe this was a Lindt dark chocolate as the shallow flavour depth was just totally unrelateable to any bar I had tried from them previous. All I can say is thank heavens for the saving grace caramel pieces, which lit up the mild tasting milky cocoa flavours with some sweet condensed milk like brown sugar flavours. The interest sparked by the caramel influence was enough to satisfy me to a reasonable standard, however this just wasn't the behemoth chocolate I was expecting it to be.
Overall on the balance of things I was pretty disappointed with what this bar offered as I was genuinely in the way of thinking that it might be challenging the upper portion of the ChocolateMission leaderboard. In a nutshell the 47.0% cocoa dark chocolate was lacking flavour depth and it created a very passive taste that had little life until the crunchy caramel pieces were munched down upon to spark some interest. My own personal perspective was that this bar needed a far stronger dark chocolate at it's heart so that the swing from the mature tasting chocolate to the sweeter caramel pieces could have been more emphatic. Unfortunately what we got here was more of a inoffensive dark chocolate that contributed very little to the total experience. I wouldn't write this off anyone's 'to try list' but at the same time I wont be pitching it as a solid recommendation.
7.4 out of 10
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63 comments:
Seems as though they don't quite get there with the excellence name this time does it :) The matching up of chocolate and fillings sounds poor here. They are supposed to be the master chocolatiers but it doesn't sound like they live up to it this time around.
Im speaking as a person with quite childish tastes but lindts milk chocolates have always been so much better than their dark if you ask me.
I find their dark chocolate is often very bitter like cooking chocolate and the like. The extra creamy milk chocolate is different class though. I've always rated that stuff.
I cant find the Lindt excellence caramel for love nor money anymore. Its well annoying it used to be one of my fave bars.
Top quality review again Jim. Im sure you have hit the nail on the head with this one as I remember thinking exactly the same thing about a similar chocolate I tried from this local choclatier we have here in Hungary. Dark chocolate should always be left to melt on the tongue and never require any sort of chewing. This is just mixed up in what it wants to be I think.
I love these type of lindt bars but it is about time they changed the wrappers. They haven't changed since they were introduced zzzz tres boring.
Sainsburys are doing an amaing deal on lindt at the mo. You can get any 2 lindt excellents for 2.50 and you can mix and match. im going to go cash in on that asap. there is a link to the deal here
http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/sainsburys-price-comparison/Block_Chocolate/Lindt_Excellence_Dark_Chocolate_70_Cocoa_100g.html
This mini heatwave we have here is way too much. i wish we had some chocolate ice cream reviews to advise us all ;) only joking Jim. Please don't ban me lol.
Perhaps this could have been better if they had sprinkled the bits on the top and not tried blending it in with the chocolate? If they had done it that way around then it could of been the caramel bits coming first and then the dark chocolate after. Just a thought!?
Well I think it is required I try this to give a 2nd opinion now. Don't worry jim, im prepared to bite the bullter and do this especially for you ; )lol.
Lindt excellence bars are the only chocolates I know to be made in France. Its weired dude. France never make chocolate. I wonder why Lindt chose to do so!????
Its no great disaster this. Just buy the milk chocolate one instead.
Ever since I've had the hotel chocolat carramellow chocolate ive not found one that has come even close to as being as tasty. Thats the bad thing about hotel chocolat I think. Once you find something you like from them, even the likes of lindt just seem sub standard in comparison. I never thought I would say that about lindt.
This is exactly the problem I had with the new special toffee G&B chocolate Jim. Have you tried that one yet? Lmao you might be able to just copy exactly what you put here. If i were a chocolate reviewer like you that is the explanation i would have told in my review for that one.
I feel so lucky now. I was so very close to buying this one the other day but at the last min I swapped it for the new white choc with vanilla. Im so pleased i did that now. The white choc was ace.
Wow a non-recommended Lindt excellence. Whatever next?
Imo you still cant beat a good bit of dark choc with chilli. I first got introduced to this by lindt. although they got this combination a bit wrong the chilli one is one they pioneered and boy did they get that right. Its so good.
Have they just brought this in priced the same as the rest? Looking at the wrapper it doesn't look like they have tried to make it any different from the rest of the excellence ones.
Did you know there are still a few Lindt Exl bars that we still don't get! My friend in america tells me they do a dark choc with blueberry. It sounds good to me, I wonder if they will ever give it to us?
Hey Hun. I thought you had gone skitzophrenic for a minute there :P I remembered you reviewing something similar previous and awarding it a very high mark but then I realised that was the milk choc version, you had me all worried :P Being truthful this wouldn't have been a chocolate I would likely have bought anyway because I never seem to buy lindt dark chocolate. Its not that I dont rate it or anything, its just more the case that I would prefer their milk chocolate bars everytime. Still its nice to see the review. Have a lovely weekend love.
Rxxx
Did I see on twitter you are going to be running a competition at the weekend Jim? Please please do :) Make the prize good mate.
Its not everyday you see the words disappointing and lindt paired together. What an annoyance, they are normally so reliable aren't they.
Lindt always look ultra cool when its done like this. There is something about these excellence bars that makes them look a cut above the sort of people they compete with on the shelves. Im talking about the likes of Green and blacks and the supermarket chocolates. They look so poor in comparison.
I was a little suspect of what this might do when I saw you had posted it on a friday. I know you keep the best things for mondays and wednesdays so you gave it away that this wasn't going to be great when I saw it scheduled for today. I know the way you work you know :P
Jim whats the latest on you doing some heavenly cakes reviews? You said in a news post recent that you would be doing some but we havent seen/heard anything since mate? Do you have an update or anything?
That advert on the right is freaky. It keeps showing me all the stuff I have bought recently. Its like someone is looking in to my web history. I dont like it Jim :( :(
Well well. Thats a pretty low score for Lindt. Based on old scores I was expecting this one to get at lowest 80%.
Reading the review I see the angle where you might be coming from with this though. I always think that if you are enhancing dark chocolate with anything then it shouldn't be anything that has to be chewed because that ruins the experience with the dark chocolate.
The one Lindt bar Im absolutely desperate to try is their white chocolate with coconut one. I just read the review you did of it and it sounds absolutely lush. Please make my day and tell me they are going to start selling it soon. It seems we get these things so much later than anyone else does.
Lol I thought the total opposite to you about this. I don't like my dark choccie that strong so having the sugary caramel lumps were a nice way to take away the bitterness I was getting. On the whole I now know I prefer the milk chocolate one, but for dark chocolate I didn't think it was bad at all.
What has been your snack of the week then Jimbob. We are nearly in to october now and we still dont have any halloween reviews from you? Are you going to be starting them anytime soon.
double post sorry - I could be going crackers but didn't you say you had done an interview with Ritter Sport that you were going to be posting soon? It was on one of the reviews you did about them recently. Sorry for the randomness but this just reminded me of it for some reason.
This isn't a flavour i had seen before todays review but i might just have missed it because the pack is so similar to the other caramel bar.
I think lindt have a little issue there myself. So many of there excellence bars look so similar I think it could be worth them trying to make the packs look more distinct from one another. Its much harder to tell if there is something new out for lindt than it is for say someone like ritter or green and blacks. The colours on their packs make it like impossible to miss.
Lindt dark chocolate is the root of all evils =P as you can tell im no fan of the stuff bleugh.
I still don't understand why Lindt don't do a soft caramel variety in their range.
I would of thought that it would of been one of the first in the range but for some I dont think they do one. There must be a reason for it.
I think the Lindt %s of dark chocolate can be really funny. The lower ones that are like 40% are nice and mellow and the stronger 70%+ I find have nice coffee, satisfying tones. Its the ones in the middle like the 50/60%s that I dont like. I find they have this odd sour taste to them. Its hard to describe but they arent anywhere as good as the extreme %s they do.
You are quite the influencer young man. This is a chocolate I would have been all over had it I not seen this. I don't like the sound of it now you have descibed it like you have though. The chocolate type so obviously doesn't suite the purpose of the caramel bits inside. It makes sense when you think about it.
I just thought of an idea that could potentially be a world beating chocolate ........ get this ..... Lindt Salted Caramel Lindor :-D
Now tell me that wouldn't be the best creation in chocolate history. The potential for something like that is so big.
No doubt if this wasnt Lindt you would have rated this even lower. You cant deny you have some favourite brands that get special marks from you. The evidence is plain for all to see.
Jim in your humble opinion which is the greatest Lindt chocolate bar?
I love Lindt Lindors but haven't ever bought any of their blocked chocolate before. Can you please point me in the direction of their best milk and dark chocolates please. Im very open to your suggestions :)
See this is where I get confused. How can they call this caramel? Caramel is supposed to be soft. To me it looks like they have toffee brittle in there, not caramel at all.
Lindt have proven time and time again that most of what they make is really nice so I think we can forgive them for the odd occasion when they aren't spot on. IMO their dark chocolate orange intense is still the best orange and dark chocolate around.
I used to think that Lindt was uber uber posh when it came to chocolate but now its more a middle ground to me. The most time I use it these days is when im using choc for cooking. I think i last had some of their dark chocolate when I was making the icing for my last cake.
There haven't been any twitter competitions as of late jim? how come they have all dried up mate? You not getting as much chocolate through?
Errr why is that advert at the top telling me to go buy the shoes i wanted? i've been talking myself out of buying those all morning. is this just conincedence or on purpose? Freaky.
Even though the score isnt brilliant i still think i will try it myself and see what I think. Your scores are normally spot on mind so its more out of hope I try this one more than anything else.
I was so surprised to see this deal they were doing on Lindt in sainsburys. They had some of their excellence bars at £1 each!!! 2 years ago £1 wouldn't have bought you a block let alone 100 grams of the stuff lol.
Great review Jim. The detail you go in to describing the chocolate never fails to astound me. You got to have some sort of talent to do that sort of thing. I find describing how food tastes very difficult myself, it must be natural for you.
I tried this bar a little more than a year ago and I loved it.
Oh, and another Excellence bar that I really loved was the 65% Mdagascar Mild Dark - it's so fruity!
@Ian: they have this bar, which is very good.
Hi All
What a surprise huh!? I'm talking about the weather not this Lindt bar haha :D For those living outside the south of the UK we are having a crazy mini heatwave ... I think the high is 29c today! Suffice to say its baking and I want to hit the beer garden so apologies if my response is a little short.
TONY - It now sits in as part of the milk chocolate range. See here http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/sainsburys-price-comparison/Block_Chocolate/Lindt_Excellence_Milk_Chocolate_Crunchy_Caramel_100g.html
STU - Change the wrappers? They only just changed a lot of them.
RICHARD - Thanks for letting us know.
LAUREN - Is it not called Burnt Toffee? A review will be following soon.
BEN - There must have been another one before I haven't rated highly. I can't recall it off the top of my head but there has to be one at least.
MARTIN - See Richard.
ANDY - A blueberry one sounds great.
ANON - Snack of the week will be revealed tomorrow :D patience :D
DAVID - I have the ritter interview ready to post. Look out for it soon.
IAN - I don't think that a soft caramel would fit in to thin nature of the bar chap. Perhaps they could implement it in to Lindors some way though. There was a good suggestion around that.
HAYLEY - Well I wont argue you with you. A Lindor with a salted caramel influence would be brilliant. Fingers crossed they can make it happen one day.
CRAIG - My favourite Lindt!? Blimey there's a question. I wouldn't know what to say off the top of my head. Let me get back to you on that.
JAMIE - This confuses me also.
ANON - There is a twitter competition running right now. Keep up champ :D
KELLY - Bear with me. Im experimenting with the adverts.
ANA - I had totally forgotten about that one. I really rated that range. The Gianduja part of it was also great.
Thanks for the comments so far everyone. Enjoy the weekend and be sure to lap up this fine weather (that I hope you also have!!) whilst you can.
Dont forget to tune in for the end of week post tomorrow.
JIM
Man I thought Lindt were better than this. They are usually so professional when it comes to marrying up their chocolate with extra flavours.
Lindt are so funny. i find it hard to believe they are so well known because they arent ones to ever advertise or anything. Everyone just seems to accept that they are this premium chocolate and they dont do anything to deserve it. Could it be a case of the chocolate doing the talking for them? Lol this bar begs to differ.
7.4 tut tut. If you look at any other lindt excellence they always get so much better than that. Not good news.
I wouldn't of predicted this coming out as underwhelming. Its not like Lindt at all to disappoint.
I wish I could say we are aligned on this one Jim but I disagree with you entirely. I would give this at least an 8 and a half lol I thought it was so good I hid it from my partner so he didn't just eat it all.
Oh Lindt you big disappointers .............. only kidding, I think we can all afford them this one slip up. Every make of chocolate seems to do it on the odd occasion.
p.s. Do you have a view on the whole Tevez situation then Jimbo? I cant imagine you being too sympathetic with the guy considering the chequered past he had with Man U?
Im so impatient. As soon as Friday comes around im so intrigued as to what snack of the week is going to be!? You should make it a weekly thing on twitter Jim that you give us a little clues throughout the week so we can make gusses to what it is. One clue a day would be well funny.
Hey hold up. Whats this all lindt being made in France :S :S I was under impression that they made all their chocolates in Germany. No one makes chocolate in France. Arent they too busy making cheese LMAO.
I'm absolutely obsessed with the lindt with a hint of sea salt now. I've looked for a review J but im not finding it. If that is one that hasn't made your reviewing list then you are in for such a treat man. I will predict a score right now that it gets in to the 9s easy. You are going to love it.
Oh wow a review of a proper chocolate bar for once. Now theres a funny thing we dont get them much anymore.
Chewing on dark choc is just wrong. Thats when I find it tastes horrible and bitter. The only way to eat it is to let it melt on the tongue and slowly fizz away. Its quite understandable why this one wouldn't have worked out now I think about it.
This is so unlike Lindt to fail so miserabley. All the scores this week have been in the seven region. You seem to be accumilating a lot of average chocolates at the moment Jimbo. You need to start being more selective with what you choose maybe ;)
Its unlike Lindt not to make the best of a combo like this. I would of thought this would have been a prime one for you jim. You musn't get too upset. Im sure there are plenty other lindt bars you have been more than happy with of late. The new almond one is a particular fave of mine.
When it comes to Lindt chocolate I normally stick with the lindors anyways. Its not often I find myself dipping into their bars of chocolates just for the reason I don't like the blocks. Im my opinion they always make them way too thin and weedy. I find it annoying that they melt so fast that you dont get the chance to taste them properly.
In terms of dark chocolate, it is quite disappointing. When I ate it, I actually thought it was milk chocolate.
Apart from the Dark/milk ambiguity though, I think this bar tasted exquisite. The flavour of caramel was heavenly.
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