Chocolat Bonnat and Chocolate Comparisons
What I say may put me in peril from brand-loyal chocoholics so here is a forewarning spoiler: Lindt and Swiss chocolates have been surpassed by French. Go no further if you think you can’t handle it. 
It gets pretty opinionated from here on in,
Let me explain chocolate in terms of fruit for those for whom chocolate is just another sweet.
- To me, M&Ms, Mars bars, Easter candies and Nestle boxed chocolates like Quality Street are the fruit equivalent of Jello or Koolaid, as far as “real chocolate” aka cocoa content, is concerned. There’s a waxy, abstract taste that is more sugar than cocoa.
- With cheap, drugstore available chocolate, some are better than others, but like Hersheys, Stovers, Cadbury would be the equivalent of homogenous, preserved canned fruit. There’s a chemical, oversweetened yet bland taste.
- Nestle Baci, Ferrero Rocher, Dove, and low end of the Lindt line would be those out of season waxed, chain grocery store fruit from thousands of miles away. Much of the market share is here.
- Specialty organic chocolates like fair trade, organic Cocoa Camino and Denman Island, or like, Godiva are the fruit equivalent of the organic section at a chain grocery store; quality varies and it means well and is better than most mass marketed ones but still…
- Beyond this we have Dolfin, Dagoba and Rogers’s chocolates which are the equivalent of getting your fruit fresh from a farmer’s market. It swings in availability seasonally but is more directly connected to the small producers somehow and the taste is rich and intense.
- At the new top of the scale is Chocolat Bonnat which is like the peak ripe freshness of fruit picked within the hour to be consumed in the sunlight that grew it. [Subject to revision on further sampling]
I hate to judge a chocolate on a single sample but it had a burnt background taste and bitterness more like Baker’s® Chocolate, no much tongue melt. No grease coating the tongue, more of a chalkiness. It may have been the particular one I had but where I bought it no longer stocks it so a retry is not possible at this time. (About $3 for 46 grams)
Dolfin has layers of complex flavors much like Dagoba does, but less subtle and a little sharper and harsher than Dagoba. All of Dolfin are high cocoa content, no chalkiness, none of the waxy tongue-slick ubiquitous to candy bars that contain chocolate in their ingredient list. This one had cocoa mass, (i.e. cocoa butter and cocoa powder). It’s got some variety in texture as well and isn’t oversweet. The chocolate isn’t overwhelmed by other ingredients. (About $4 per 70 grams)
Rogers are in the business niche of Laura Secord or Godiva of making their chocolates not only for the tongue but also the eye for gift giving. Despite this, they are a chocolatier not just a chocolate maker. The balance of flavors, textures was even and had a depth that surprised me. (About $4 for 70 grams)
Dagoba, like Dolfin, has a wide range of unusual flavor combinations, such as this, lavender and dried bluberry, into small batch-chocolate. The flavor is intense. The bouquet is intriguing. The flavors are layered. The mouth feel is good but the melting point higher than rogers and much higher than Lindt. Like higher “dose” chocolates, I can only “take” about 20 or 30 grams in a day. But then, like aged cheddar compared to young cheddar, a little goes futher. 10 grams of this is a serving. (About $3 for 56 grams)
This is a chocolatier’s chocolate. It has only 3 ingredients, cocoa, sugar and cocoa butter. It has the source beans coming from 8 places and lists its qualities the way one would describe nuances of wine. It has a smoothness without any bitter aftertaste nor waxy coating. The flavor is balanced and delicate with a variety of depths. I, again, am speaking on the basis of one sampling, but this could take a while to savor. (Over $6 for 100 grams)
Featured Links: Cocoa Refining Definitions
Word Chain: pinch, plinth, splint, splendid, fine clothes, refined look, a refinery, smelting, sweltering, melting in one’s finery, lace has a place, find a winery, where we are dressed to the nines, or are we, fine and well, sit a spell, kick back, relax or go to dwell in a handbasket.
Trivia Bit: Even very good chocolate is still cheaper than illicit drugs. Street price of crack in Canada is $8-10 a hit (2003, report on police crackdown on illicit drug effect on drug use, drug price or use of treatment programs)
Featured Non-Chocolate Quote:
“It’s your life. Sign a waiver saying that you take responsibility for it. Set yourself and others free. Waiver: I understand that during the course of my life I will be required to make many decisions, such as where I want to live, whom I want to live with, where I work, how much fun I have, and how I spend my money and time…” (source: Always Victoria)
BTW: Way down on the end of the right sidebar by the comic is a poll to vote on your reading matter.
Hello, Michele sent me.
A post about chocolate! Mmmm. . . . it is like you knew i was coming!
yum! reading your post made me wish i had a chocolate bar on hand. better go out and get one first thing tomorrow. i just love godiva chocolates! hi, here via michele. 
I enjoy your chocolate sermon and have a few additional comments. To my English palate a Cadbury’s chocolate is still significantly nicer than Hershey’s, which has a kind of detergent edge.
In the posh chocolates, try Green and Blacks which is also available in the USA. The Maya Gold organic is excellent and has a high cocoa content.
If you are ever in London, visit Rococo, in Chelsea’s Kings Road, which is an absolute mecca for chocaholics. Chantal Coady opened the shop and also has the definitive book on chocolate.
Michele sent me.
Yummy. I love chocolate. I jsut joined weight watchers three weeks ago si I’d better ger outta here before I’m too tempted!
Here from Micheles.
Sorry about all the typos. My four year old was throwing a fit and I wasnt paying attention.
Now I just need me some chocolates, I mean real chocolate not that fake stuff. Did you know I love real chcoclate, I do.
The older I get, the more I love chocolate
Yum! I’m a crazy chocoholic, but quite particular. I most frequently enjoy Lindt, because I love it’s nice thin cut and meltability. I’ve recently started experiementing with the Dagoba flavors and have been impressed, they even have a black currant dark chocolate. However, since I got pregnant I haven’t had a since chocolate urge. Werid.
Ah chocolate! I agree with Rashbre about Green and Blacks’ Maya Gold. If you like chocolate of the boxed variety I recommend Booja Booja;
http://www.boojabooja.com/products.htm
I hope you can get hold of them where you are. Receiving a box as a gift is the closest thing to heaven on earth.
The best thing is that once you open the box you are faced with a Booja Boojagram my last one said something along the lines of, ‘Don’t always blame the cucumber’
Thanks for visiting my blog and for your helpful tips. I’ve already visited Kelley Armstong and read some of the stories…
Green and Blacks I’ve seen but not got around to trying yet. Blacks’ Maya Gold I haven’t heard of. I’ll have to see if I can source it locally. Anyone tried chocolove?
When I get to London next I’ll have to check out the Rococo store. The Booja Booja luxury gift box from Norfolk sure seems a luxury of artisinal chocolates.
Lindt is very meltable and Chocolat Bonnat is similarly meltable with as smooth of mouth feel but better aftertaste I think.
Although Cadbury was one of the very first, they seems acidic to me. I like literally basic chocolate.
I found the Maya Gold. It seems very Lindt like leaving that tongue coating. I can understand how one could love the intense flavor and rich chocolateness but the mouth feel and acidity is not to my taste.
T. Alexander enjoyed this post so much that sharing it with GourmetStation blog readers was required.
I have read your chocolate commentaries and have only this to add. I have spent hours trying to find a site to send an email to Laura Secord regarding the chocolate I have received and given this Christmas.
I have been disappointed in past years but this year has been the last itime my family or I will buy Laura Secord. It has been a family tradition to have a large ( 5 pound) box of Laura Secord assorted chocolates to be the last gift unwrapped under tree on Christmas morning.
All or us ,from the youngest to the oldest ,waited for this moment as it signalled that all the gifts were opened and we could then sit back and enjoy what Santa and everyone else had provided for us.
This tradition has been long standing in our family from our parents who started this tadition at least 40 years ago, to my brother and sister and I have who carried on this tradition. Our children look for the moment when that “box “is discovered and given to the senior female on Christmas morning.
I have to tell you that as the senior female in our family I will make sure and request that next year the box to be opened is NOT Laura Secord.
I had some Russell Stover chocolate this year and it was far superior to the Laura Secord. When we were growing up the “cheap ” chocolate was the chocolate no name cherries and you know what, in the past few years they have been far better than the Laura ones.
I have always looked forward to my Lauras and my Secords, as well as my nougats and toffies. This, by the way, was not just at Christmas but at Easter and on our special occasions.
This year ( and to be truthful in the last 5 years or so) I have been so disappointed with the assorted chocolates. They have not contained what we came to look forward to as quality chocolates and the flavor was no better than dime store chocolate. I would rather have Zellers, Walmart etc. chocolate cherries rather than those from Laura Secord.
I don’t know if this is my famiy’s personal feeling or if it is shared by others. I do know however, that we ( all of us) have purchased our last Laura Secord products.
This is particularily sad to say as we were raised in Saint Catharines, have tramped the grounds that Laura travelled many times throughout our lives and even went to school with descendents who bore her name.
How sad that a brand name we grew up has come to the point where we are embarrassed to say that we have offered them to guests expecting them to be the top of the line in Chocolate.
I guess next year it’s going to have to be Godiva or Stover or some petite choclatier that we discover for ourselves.
Too sad that one more childhood touchstone has vanished.
It’s frustrating when things don’t meet your expectations. Hope getting that off your chest made you feel better.
There is a 1-800 number at their site in the small writing at the bottom. http://www.laurasecord.ca/
It’s been in business 96 years but since 1986 was owned and operated as part of US firm Ganong Bros.
Consumer demands in North America often drive down prices with people wanting bulk before quality. The palate has shifted as well. In general people want a darker chocolate, even in their candy box chocolates.
It’s good to go with your senses rather than a name.
I suppose the formulation of every chocolate shifts with how the crop is that year, perhaps a compromise between ingredient cost versus what the customer base is willing to pay and how much of their niche market they can capture and still make a profit in an increasingly competitive market.
well maybe you should try actually living with a real live cacao tree growing in your backyard. When the cacao fruit ripens you can pluck it… crack it open then eat the sweet soft flesh that covers the seeds as you nip them one by one off their sweetcorn arrangement… then after you’ve sucked all the flesh out, dry them seeds, peel off the shell, take them to the wet market at dawn passed the row of fresh tuna, rock fish, groupers, crabs, shrimp the while the vendors splash cool tapwater to their stock, then passed the meat section of freshly butchered cows, pigs, chicken, the latter you could actually buy alive at the market entrance, and if it is to your fancy have it drained alive in front of you through a slit in the throat; then keep walking passed the fresh vegetables section, then passed the delicious aroma of peanuts deepfried some on display ready for your kilo still searing hot and oh so divinely tempting; and fin’lly you arrive at the cocoa section where “bilao” (big basket plate) of cacao are on display, just behind the counter, cocoa is being ground… Hand your sack of cocoa from your own tree, the ones you just chewed off flesh from last week, dried and cracked shells from? And voila! From the grinder out comes the fruit of your sweet labor, rough, tangy, bitter, your own genes in it… mold into tablets and make a fresh pitcher of cocoa the next day. 100 % GUARANTEED PURE COCOA. NO SUGAR! AU NATUREL & UNREFINED! Organic? We fertilized the tree with pig dung, chicken poop… you wanna go further on the organic? the chicken ate rice besides the worms they find on the earth… and the pigs eat a mix of banana trunk, ground rice hull, and green leafy vegetables. Yum! So drink up!
It’s not about the fanciest wrappers, the smoothest texture, the amount of chocolate. It’s about the love! My mother worked really hard to serve me up a cup during the finest season of the year. Christmas.
I would love to live somewhere where cocoa trees grow and see the pure process.
I don’t do meat so seeing the animals killed for me wouldn’t help.
Chocolate and all food should be about love. I agree.
Oh! At last. Someone who agrees with me about Chocolat Bonnat! Marvellous stuff. Have you sampled their 100% bar? Unbearably good eating. Just a small amount at a time.
Dont you know that chocolates can improve the quality of your skin? and Improve breathing problems..What you take into your body determines how your body will function.
I am printing this entry and taking it to the magical little chocolate store that’s a few blocks away from my downtown office. I’m sure they’ll wholeheartedly agree with your assessment – and will happily supply me with whatever supplies I need to confirm your position. I’m going to need to rack up more kilometers on my bike to compensate for what’s coming!
I’m back from Michele’s. You’ve once again made my weekend.