I picked this bar up at Target. They’re not available at all Target stores, in fact, the only one I see them at is the Target in Harbor City here in the Los Angeles area. I think it’s cool that Target has regionally relevant offerings and while this isn’t exactly a local product, I’m sure the folks who requested it and buy it are happy to have a taste of home.

Bubu Lubu is a Mexican candy from Ricolino. It’s described on the package (in English and Spanish) as strawberry flavored jelly and marshmallow with chocolate flavored coating. I know, I know, why am I buying a mockolate product? How could I not! Look at that metallic blue wrapper, the white marshmallow character with the spiky Lisa Simpson hair and strawberry-flavored scarf & gloves! And the name, people, just say that name out loud a few times.

They don’t say so on the package, but many folks enjoy Bubu Lubu frozen. (I don’t happen to care for cold candy, but that’s just me, so I ate mine room temperature.)

Even the shape of the bar is fun, with its little curves.

Inside, it’s pretty obvious how it lives up to the description. A white marshmallow base with a stripe of fruity red jelly and then covered in a crackly mockolate coating.

The strawberry jelly is tart and smooth but overwhelms any delicate vanilla flavors the marshmallow may have. The marshmallow is bouncing and lightly foamy, kind of like a meringue. The jelly creates a bit of a grainy coating, especially when it comes into contact with the mockolate, so it’s yet another texture. The mockolate, well, it’s kind of waxy and only vaguely cocoa flavored. I consider it the edible container for the jelly & marshmallow, not a full participant in this confection.

The bar is rather light, even though it looks pretty big it only weighs in at 1.23 ounces (35 grams).

Since there’s really nothing else like this in the American candy bar world, I think it’s great that this is finding its way onto American shelves. Not really a bar for me, the strawberry isn’t authentically jammy enough. But hey, it was 50 cents, so it’s not like I can expect something extraordinary. If you’re watching your calories, the fact that there’s no chocolate in there and all that marshmallow & jelly means that it rings in at a modest 126 calories.

This actually isn’t the first time I’ve bought Bubu Lubu, but this was the best looking bar I’ve had so far. I’m not sure if I’m not getting them fresh, or this is just the way that they always look. I’m not sure I’d ever find this combination, even factory-fresh with top notch ingredients excellent, but I’m sure that there are many fans of the bar.

Other views of Bubu Lubu: a review atMexico or Bust, this photo shows what the full character looks like, Candy Addict review and some Bubu Lubu love & nostalgia. 

Related Candies

1. Marshmallow Pig
2. Joyva Joys
3. Littlejohn Caramel Marshmallows
4. So this guy walks into a Turkish Bar

I’ve been a little mad at Hershey’s and while it’s only partly because of this new Bliss line*, I haven’t been that eager to try it. Their website & advertisements for the candy are so bland and generic, they may as well substitute the shots of the computer animated candy with shampoo bottles.

I’m not the only one who wonders why Hershey’s is coming out with a Dove-style bite at this time. It’s not like Hershey’s doesn’t already have a premium creamy chocolate line, whatever happened to Symphony? That’s a great name ... why go off and invent a whole new line? It just seems so silly and useless. And why is it $4 for a bag ... the price is at least a third more than the standard miniatures? How good could it be? Seeing how they’re also pushing another new line of premium chocolates via their Starbucks tie in (stuff that’s actually, I dunno, premium), how is this going to cut through the clutter of choices?

Knowing myself and how my irritation can color my enjoyment of confections, I waited. (And while I waited, I read other reviews: CandyAddict & Chocolate-Snob plus Candy Critic’s special demonstration of why Canadians don’t lock their doors.)

Hershey’s is wise to create these little packets above, I spotted them at Walgreen’s (though the ones I have are free samples) for 50 cents and they include a coupon good for a dollar off of a regular sized bag (so if you like them it’s a good deal). Of course you can also get a coupon on the Hershey’s website for a dollar off without the sample purchase.

Each little packet had three foil wrapped Bliss bites (.76 ounces). No, no package to sample all three varieties: Rich & Creamy Dark Chocolate, Smooth & Creamy Milk Chocolate and Milk Chocolate with a Meltaway Center.

(The names are actually all in lower case, because women dig that, it makes them think that these chocolates cry watching movies on AMC with them and they’re not into yoga but they’re into champagne.)

rich & creamy dark chocolate: comes in a dark maroon foil (the same shade that I love as nail polish but just can’t pull off because I’m so pale and freckly). The little square melts well, and certainly has a silky texture on the tongue. The flavor, well, it’s kind of like hot chocolate - all middle of the road. (There is milkfat in this dark chocolate.)

smooth & creamy milk chocolate: comes in a rather odd purple foil, one of those purples that looks blue under florescent lights but purple under sunlight. Just to compare, I go a hold of a Hershey’s Milk Chocolate miniature to remind myself of the taste and texture. The Bliss bite has a silky melt, it’s rather sweet, a little sticky and has a less nutty and tangy taste than the regular Hershey’s chocolate. If you’re hesitant to try this because you don’t like the taste of Hershey’s Chocolate, this is definitely a different process that doesn’t have that yogurt flavor.

milk chocolate with a meltaway center: comes in rich brown foil. It doesn’t smell like much, but true to its name it does meltaway. This is because instead of being filled with chocolate, it’s filled with chocolate with an added boost of palm kernel oil. And before you go thinking that I don’t like tropical oils, I actually love them when they’re used properly. Instead of being used for a firm center like Frangos or a super-soupy one like Lindt Lindor Truffles, this strikes a nice balance ... think hazelnut paste, but a bit smoother.

I was surprised at how well Hershey’s delivered on the creamy part of their pledge (and without PGPR). They don’t satisfy me, really, they might have a great texture but lack the chocolate punch that would really make them a rich indulgence. Three pieces of the dark chocolate are 100 calories, the other two varieties are 110 calories for three pieces.

* For the record, some of the other things that have Hershey’s in the dog house for me would be: closing the Canada & California factories & moving production to Mexico, changing the chocolate on 5th Avenue to mockolate, changing the Candy Cane Kisses so they no longer have cocoa butter in them and backing the FDA petition to downgrade chocolate definition and even though I didn’t mind them that much, for changing Good & Fruity. 

Related Candies

1. Lindt Lindor Truffle Eggs
2. Hershey’s Heart’s Desire
3. Dove Promises (Caramel & Almonds)
4. Caffarel Gianduias
5. Ferrero Rocher

All Candy Expo begins in one week, and here I am still sitting on samples from the last show! Part of the reason that I haven’t told you about Mamba Sours yet was because I didn’t see them in stores. Sometimes I review stuff that isn’t out, but most of the time I like to time my reviews of new items to when they actually hit shelves.

Finally I stumbled across them at a truck stop in Westley, CA and figured if they were there, they were probably in other more accessible stores.

Mambas are made by Storck, who also makes some other interesting candies like Toffeefay, Chocolate Riesen and probably most famously, Werther’s Originals. Mambas are simply little fruit chews, rather like Starbursts or HiCHEW.

Their newest addition to the line, introduced last year, is the sour version of the hard to find Mambas. They come in the same flavors: Orange, Lemon, Cherry Strawberry & Raspberry. (But the single pack only includes three random flavors. I was lucky enough to pick out one of each flavor at the convention so I could taste them all.)

They shape of the candies is similar to HiCHEW - a long little rectangle, not a flattened cube like Starburst. Each little mini-pack has 6 chews.

They’re lightly colored, which seems unnecessary since they’re not only wrapped in papers that tell you what flavor they are, then those are in another single-flavor wrapping. (Maybe there’s a superfluous wrapper in this mix?)

They’re firm, perhaps a little hard at first, but soften nicely in the mouth. The flavor is immediately tart for all of them, but also has a strange soft fragrant flavor that’s not usually found in sours. For example, the lemon tastes much like powdered lemonade mix ... which I enjoy, but then there’s this light background like lemon blossom or something, it just adds a dimension to it. And in most cases it feels kind of classy.

I’ve had stronger sours, and really, if I haven’t had Mambas before, I wouldn’t guess that these are really a sour either. They’re tart, and they do get me a little tingly, but there were no faces involved and absolutely nothing to bother my tongue to the point that I’d stop eating all four packages.

The chew is great once it softens, it’s smooth and wonderfully consistent in its flavor all the way to the end. Some chews, like Skittles, can get a bit grainy towards the end, this didn’t at all.

Given the choice between regular Mambas and these, I’d actually pick the sours from now on. (But I have to admit that I haven’t bought Mambas since my last review of them but upon revisiting them, they’re really an underrated candy.) I still prefer the zap of Starburst, but that might just be complacency. 

Related Candies

1. Werther’s Caramel Coffee Hard Candies
2. Werther’s Original Chewy Caramels
3. HiCHEW Yuzu & Valencia
4. HiCHEW Assortment
5. Everybody Mamba!

I’m kind of ridgid with my definition of gummi. I consider it a jelly-type candy made with gelatin. So just by that definition vegetarians can’t eat gummis because gelatin is an animal product. But gelatin gives gummis an inimitable bounce and chew that no other ingredient has been able to match.

But every once in a while a product comes along that does a pretty good simulation of a gummi, and in this case it’s not only vegan but also mostly organic. Enter Surf Sweets Super Sour Worms. If you’re looking for a candy with no artificial anything that still feels like the candy all the other kids are eating, this just might be it.

The ingredients list is short: Organic evaporated cane juice, organic tapioca syrup, citric acid, pectin, sodium citrate, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), colors (black carrot juice concentrate, turmeric & annato), natural flavors. So for anyone concerned about corn products, those are also not on the list.

The sugar sanded worms are pretty firm, they’re still bendable (even posable) but not at all sticky. The sugar sanding is pure sweet, not blasting acid wash here. (So kids who are used to really sour candies might be disappointed here.)

Inside the stiffy jelly candy is pleasantly chewy, plenty tangy and comes in different flavors.

One is a cherry & lemon (alternating yellow & dark red), on the wild cherry side of flavors, rather woodsy and sour enough to keep my salivary glands a-tingling.

The solid amber orange one is orange, or perhaps tangerine. It’s an authentic-tasting citrus mix.

If you leave the package open they will get a bit firmer, which is the way I preferred them. Right out of the bag they were very soft, kind of limp but extremely juicy.

They’re made in a peanut-free, tree nut-free, soy-free, and gluten-free facility, though they’re not certified Kosher, they’re also vegan.

I’m glad to see that Surf Sweets is continuing their trend of making (mostly) organic, all natural versions of mainstream treats. There are very few compromises here if you’re a parent looking for a treat for the kids that doesn’t have the dreaded glutens, nuts or artificial colors. The packaging is friendly looking and won’t make the kids feel like freaks either. 

Related Candies

1. Chocolate Covered Gummi Bears
2. Sour Gummi Bears
3. Pure Fun & Yummy Earth Organic Hard Candies
4. Organic Surf Sweets
5. College Farm Organic Naturepops

This is the oddest bar I think I’ve ever tried and that’s not a bad thing.

It’s called MarieBelle Mayan Chocolate Bar 70% single origin Columbian cacao - unsweetened. That’s the extent of the description given. What I found interesting reading the back of the package is that this bar is made in Columbia. And it’s made by Eneh Compania Nacional de Chocolates, and only distributed by MarieBelle (in their bar format, of course). It’s certified Kosher.

Now, besides its origin, it has other tricks up its sleeve. Unlike the 99% & 100% cacao stuff that I’ve been eating for the past two days, this is more like Michel Cluizel’s Cacao Forte 99% truffle. While there’s no added sugar here, there is a lot of milk ... probably more milk than some chocolate bars have chocolate.

The bar may be 70% cacao, but the second ingredient is milk. The whole list of ingredients goes like this: Cocoa mass, skim milk powder, cocoa powder, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, soy lecithin, PGPR-90 polyglicerol polyricinoleate (emulsifier) and natural vanilla.

From what I understand from reading the label, what MarieBelle (or Eneh) has done is take some intense, unsweetened chocolate and diluted it with some milk & emulsifiers. Much like coffee becomes much more drinkable to the majority of folks with a bit of milk to temper the bitterness but still allow the flavors to come through, that’s how this bar operates. Milk adds a bit of sweetness with its natural sugars (lactose) as well as simple bulk with its fats & protein. (This bar has about 20% more protein per ounce than straight chocolate but also has 16 grams of carb per ounce though none of them straight sugars.)

Yes, it has PGPR in it too, which I was a little concerned about, as I associate it with cheap chocolate ... it’s a simple filler in most cases, it maintains the texture & mouthfeel of chocolate but of course is far cheaper than actually have chocolate content. In this case, I’m guessing with such high milk content the extra emulsifiers are handy to keep the bar properly integrated.

But all that technical stuff aside, it’s a nice looking bar. It reminds me of a rye crisp, with the little divets in it or maybe a game board that should have little pegs.

The thick plank of chocolate has a nice stiff snap to it. I was concerned with all the extra milk & emulsifiers it’d be fudgy or soft, but it has a texture consistent with a 70% dark bar.

It smells a bit dusty, a little caramelized but actually slightly sweet as well.

On the tongue it has a very slow and viscous melt. It reminds me of peanut butter. It actually tastes a bit like dark roasted peanuts. It also has those toasted burnt sugar notes, like the crust of a creme brullee.

It’s quite sticky in the mouth, but that makes it feel substantial and long-lasting if savored. The other way to go is to chew it up, but I have to say that makes a big mess in the mouth. Once it melts, it’s clingy. Chocolate with sugar in it wants to fall apart, kind of like fudge. Instead, this is almost like a caramel, it wants to stay together.

I have to say that even though this bar is jarringly different than many chocolate bars, the way they’ve solved the problem of leaving out sugar without being chalky or blazingly bitter is quite pleasing. (Kudos for not going to the sugar alcohols that mess with the texture and of course have those unwanted side effects.) If you’re a fan of peanut butter flavors and textures, this bar won’t feel too unfamiliar.

I don’t know if I’d buy it again for myself, but if you’re on a low carb or no sugar diet (but have no problem with the immense amount of fat) this could be the indulgence you’re looking for. I don’t think this bar is that easy to find. I got mine at Chocolate Covered in San Francisco, you can also order online directly from MarieBelle.

Related Candies

1. Four 99%-100% Chocolate
2. Hershey’s Favorites - Sugar Free
3. Choxie 3 Ounce Chocolate Bars
4. Milka Alpenmilch
5. MarieBelle Chocolates

Before I took on this challenge of the all-chocolate chocolate bars, I did take a test to find out if I’m a “supertaster”. People are divided into three categories: nontasters, regular tasters and supertasters.

Our tongues can detect five tastes: sweet, salt, bitter, sour & umami (savory). Nontasters (about 25% of the population) tend to enjoy more intensely flavor things such as super sours and liberally salted products, enjoy fatty & sweet foods while regular tasters (50%) shy away from intensity but sample liberally from all the major tastes & textures equally. Supertasters (25%) dislike stronger bitter & sour things and even high fat content foods. There are all sorts of scientific studies about evolution and how each of these types can be beneficial or detrimental to your ultimate longevity ... or enjoyment of that long life.

Although I have a very keen sense of smell, I am a regular taster. (I like coffee, super sours, broccoli & used to drink pickle juice - though I really like chocolate & cheese, I’m not that keen on other types of fatty foods.) So I figured I might be a good candidate for appreciating the more authentic tastes of the purest chocolate.

Dagoba makes one of the few 100% chocolate bars and the only one that I could find that was organic. It’s called Prima Materia which means, literally, prime matter. It’s usually used to refer to alchemical ideas about the base matter that makes up the universe, that all matter can be changed back into and then reformed. Kind of like stem cells are for living creatures.

In this case, this is the essential chocolate - just beans from Madagascar, ground up and made into a bar.

At only $2.75 retail, it was about the same price as a baking bar (though smaller of course). I got this one as a sample at the Fancy Food Show in January.

The Prima Materia is a dark looking bar, nicely glossy with a solid snap.

The melt on this was a little sticky, I can’t really explain it. Whatever it is, it’s not terribly dry. The melt lets the flavors come out slowly. I taste a bit of cherries and raspberry at the very start, but once it melts a bit more it’s all about the dark mulch of the forest floor.

There’s a light yeasty note in there that reminds me of dark beer. The bitterness is noticeable, but not enough to keep me from eating more pieces. By far this is the most edible of the bars I tried. I wouldn’t say that I’ll be eating a lot of it, but with some almonds or cashews nearby, it’s an acceptable form of entertainment for a while.

It really doesn’t take much to satisfy my chocolate craving either. (Of course then I start craving something else, like a glass of water & some sweet caramels.)

2 ounces - 185 calories per ounce - Kosher
Rating: 5 out of 10

After Christmas this bar, Ghirardelli 100% Cacao Unsweetened Chocolate, was on sale for only $1.25, and found in with the baking products, I thought I’d throw it into the mix as a way to see if I was just being overly picky about what eating chocolate is in the first place (besides a fancy way to charge two or three times as much as chocolate chips).

The wrapper is very simple, but still quite compelling. The bar is large and flat, a little larger than the regular bars in the candy aisle, in this case it’s 4 ounces instead of 3.17 of the current Intense Dark line.

To their credit, Ghirardelli is clear that this is a baking bar. So this is an off-label application of the confection.

As lovely as it was, and it is a lovely bar, nicely tempered, perhaps a bit stiff but a deep red-brown, they are correct in not promoting this as an eating bar.

The smell was quite woodsy, like cedar and a bit grassy. It tastes like olives and asparagus. Bitter, moisture-sucking, mulchy and green.

Looking at the nutrition label it’s easy to see why this is so chalky, it has less fat than the Prima Materia, a whopping 40 calories per ounce less fat. (Have i mentioned lately that I love cacao fat ... sometimes I wonder what it’d be like if donuts were made by frying them in cocoa butter.)

4 ounces - 145 calories per ounce - Kosher
Rating: 4 out of 10

Meiji Chocolate Kolika Caca 99% Ita has a very short, but less “pure” list of ingredients: cacao, cocoa powder, soy lecithin & artificial flavor. (I’m guessing that’s vanillin.)

Meiji is a good consumer brand in Japan. They make all sorts of candy, not just chocolate products. (My favorites are their Gummy Choco and Chelsea.)

It’s a pretty bar with 15 nicely shaped scored pieces. The package is also good, an easy to open paperboard box that fits back together pretty well to hold the leftovers (and there’s gonna be leftovers, who eats the whole thing?). I was encouraged that it had a pretty high fat content, too.

The bar wasn’t expensive ($1.99), which is probably a pretty good indication of what I should expect for a chocolate without any sugar. The scent is of the dark roasted cocoa flavors, a bit of charcoal. There’s a very abrupt high-note of the vanilla flavoring in there as well.

On the tongue it melts pretty nicely, but it’s quite bitter and dry. Keeping it further back on the tongue seems to help to recognize the other flavors that included a bit of a yeasty note of baking bread, wood smoke and burnt sugar.

I should note, in case you haven’t noticed so far, these are not low-calorie bars. In fact, this “sugarless chocolate” is some of the highest caloric density reviews I’ve ever done. (It’s the cocoa butter.)

But note that chocolate has a good amount of iron (10%), and about 3 grams of protein per ounce and 4 grams of fiber per ounce. That doesn’t even go into the positive effects that all those antioxidants have for your heart and circulatory system.

1.58 ounces - 161 calories per ounce (contains soy lecithin & artificial flavors)
Rating: 3 out of 10

My passion for this bar can hardly be contained. The happiest part of this whole experience is that I know that once I’m done writing this, I don’t have to eat this bar any longer.

I was so excited when I bought the Chocolat Bonnat 100% Cacao. I’ve never had Bonnat before, the only experience I have with it is reading this exhaustive series at DallasFood.org about Noka and seeing the bars at several upscale stores. At $8 a bar (granted it is a big bar at 100 grams), I was hoping for some sort of miracle. I’ve come to realize there’s a reason that chocolate with sugar is so widely available ... it’s just better that way.

The wrapper, I admit, is lovely. The regular Bonnat bars have white wrappers with similar lettering, but the 100% gets the special brick red treatment, which should be a good indication that you should stop and think about it. 100% Cacao. No sugar, not even lecithin or vanilla. Stop. Hazard. Danger.

The bar was wonderfully tempered. (As wonderfully tempered as I was ill tempered when I was done.)

When I first unwrapped it, it smelled strongly of green olives. Later when I tasted it, I kept getting the strong, puckering flavor of green olives, grassy matcha and artichokes. These are all good things as far as vegetables go, but I don’t like them together and I don’t like them as the primary notes in my chocolate.

Here’s the thing, I hear my flavors. Well, not quite hear ... they have wavelengths in my head (and kind of colors that go along with them). Flavors create vibrations. And different kinds of flavor combinations create different combinations of these vibrations & wavelengths. It’s called synesthesia and many people have it to some degree.

So when I talk about things being harmonious, it’s not just a metaphor, it’s an actual description of my experience. In this case the bar was screechy. It was unripe, unrehearsed, stuttery, weak and tinny.

I’ve had the bar for a couple of months and have unwrapped it a few times to see if it was just that I’d had the flu, the lights in the house were at the wrong level, the moon was in the wrong phase or was in a bad mood. No, this is like Phillip Glass & Stephen Sondheim collaborating on some sort of atonal opera about database programmers performed by deaf alley cats in a poorly ventilated auditorium with squeaky chairs that pinch. It’s probably a wonderful intellectual experiment, but it’s not an enjoyable physical one. (But again, this may be an experience colored by the way that my brain processed certain things and might be just glorious to folks who don’t get the cacophony of wavelengths.)

3.53 ounces - unknown calories
Rating: 1 out of 10

The best news is that I have a deeper appreciation of my blended chocolates now and single origins even more so. As far as pure chocolate as being a “sugarless” alternative to regular sweetened chocolate, I think a very small quantity of sweetened chocolate will be more satisfying than a larger portion of one of these. But your mileage may vary. I definitely recommend the Dagoba if you’re itching to try just one. (The fact that it has a reasonable price is also a selling point.)

All of the remaining bits of these bars will be taken next door to the neighbors this evening where I will donate them to Amy in the hopes that she’ll create some awesome and rich brownies out of them so that I may love this chocolate again.

Casey at Chocolate Note has far more appreciation for the most concentrated chocolate bars. For other deeper appreciations for these bars try the Seventy Percent for: Michel Cluizel Noir Infini & forum discussion about Bonnat & Cluizel.

Related Candies

1. Michel Cluizel 99%
2. Guittard Quetzalcoatl
3. Dagoba Single Origin
4. E. Guittard Single Origin Tasting Kit
5. Scharffen Berger - Cacao Nibs

For about six months I’ve been looking for the Michel Cluizel Noir Infini 99% bar. It’s not that it’s new, it just happened that the usual stores where I find Cluizel products were sold out of the bar.

I like the responsible size of it, it’s only 30 grams (1.05 ounces) instead of the usual 100 gram size for Cluizel’s large tablets.

Even though I declared this sugar free week, it wasn’t until I was prepping this post that I found out that there is sugar in this bar. The ingredients are: cacao (99%), cane sugar, spices, cocoa butter & Bourbon vanilla. Honestly, with a list like that, I can’t imagine it’s more than a pinch per pound. The wrapper also explains the bar further: This chocolate with its long kneading process and extremely high content of cocoas, reveals deep and dense strains for connoisseurs’ palate.

It is a lovely little bar, with a rich and deep scent of chocolate.

On the tongue the thin bar melts pretty quickly. Overall it feels a bit like a clay slurry ... not quite chalky enough to call it, well, chalky or dry. The vanilla notes are pretty strong, as is a bit of a green wood and black tea note. By the end I was getting mulch, vanilla grass, pecans, burnt hazelnuts ... all wrapped up in smoke and charcoal.

Though it was bitter, there was very little puckeringly acrid acidity that I get with other high cacao bars (I’ll have a rundown of some of those tomorrow).

But not really a lot of fun. I was grateful that it was a small bar.

The other chocolate on my list of pursuits lately has been the Michel Cluizel Cacao Forte bonbon.

It’s amazing what a difference it makes when the intensity of the cacao is reduced by just a bit. While this truffle has no added sugar, it is a ganche and contains butter and/or heavy cream. So while the chocolate is 99%, the truffle itself is not.

The ganache is soft and melts quickly. The lighter berry & fruit notes come out much better, the bitterness is nearly gone and the finish, though dry is not acrid or acidic. But it feels thin in flavor, and I’ve tried quite a few Cluizel chocolates, so I know I can do better.

After eating the straight chocolate, the bonbon is a relief and seems almost sweet by comparison. But if you have this in a box and have been eating Champignon Caramel or Madagascar Dark Chocolate Ganache it will be jarring.

These pieces feel like exercises, like some single origin bars that give us the sense that it’s great that so many chocolate makers blend beans to give us a consistent and appealing flavor profile. I appreciate them, I grant that they have the right to exist, but I don’t care to eat them again.

As for the aspect that they’re free of added sugar (effectively), they’re not a low calorie food. Chocolate has oodles of fat in it and the bar comes in at 151 calories per ounce and less than a gram of carbs. (I don’t know what the bonbon is, but I’ll guess it’s even higher in fat.) However, if you’re looking for a chocolate punch that won’t raise your blood sugar level (and dark chocolate has been shown to lower insulin resistance, lower blood pressure, lower blood cholesterol levels, blah blah) this is an interesting “theraputic” option that’s probably cheaper than many other medical alternatives. It’s also just an interesting excercise all chocophiles should experience. The Noir Infini tasting square can be found in Cluizel assortments, so that’s probably the best way to experience this ... as part of an entire trip, not as the destination. 

Related Candies

1. The Alien Forehead Chocolate Collection
2. Mori Ex Cacao Gift Set
3. Recchiuti
4. Michel Cluizel Les 1ers Crus de Plantation
5. Pierre Marcolini Chocolates

While it’s pretty easy to find sugar free mints (even ones sweetened with sorbitol or some other natural sugar alcohol), it’s pretty hard to find little candies in other flavors.

Enter XLear with their SparX candies, all sweetened with xylitol. Xylitol is a natural sugar alcohol with the same sweetening power as sucrose but one third fewer calories. It’s made from birch bark, corn cobs and occurs naturally in plenty of other places and is even metabolized by the body in everyday fruits & vegetables.

They come in three different flavor varieties: 

The little pastel bits are naturally colored and about the size and shape of the old Tart n’ Tinys.

They have a light little shell on them, it’s a bit soft on the tongue at first and a little slippery. The little pellet inside has a cooling effect, a little tart boost and a sweet finish. The flavors are very light, not really that noticeable - not as powerful as SweeTarts.

Citrus has a distinct flavors, a little more tart than the others. Berry is all about the floral flavors of strawberry & raspberry, I couldn’t tell them apart that well, they weren’t at all tangy, but felt very fresh. The Fruit blend had the banana, which I thought was fun (especially for someone who likes Runts), grape was like concord grape (with a slight chewable vitamin aftertaste) and apple was similarly similar to apple juice. Peach was, well, peachy enough (not my favorite, but not too powerful so I didn’t pick them out of the mix).

I thought they could have been a bit more flavorful, but that’s because I wanted some super-duper cavity fighting replacement for SweeTarts, but that’s not what these are. They’re not really candy for popping mindlessly, I don’t think. Just a little freshening, mouth cooling treat.

Each little candy has about .6 calories each, meaning the whole package has about 68 calories total.

Xylitol, like other sugar alcohols, can cause intestinal distress and I did notice a bit of gassiness after eating these (probably the equivalent of a whole tube over two days). I’m told that if you slowly ramp up, your body acclimates. Brian reviewed them a couple of years ago and didn’t get along at all well with the xylitol and neither did many of the commenters, so start slow with these before you go eating a whole package.

The ingredients are natural enough, though I’m not sure what the source of the natural colors are (so I can’t say if it’s vegan or not, but there’s also beeswax in there, so it may not meet all vegan standards). They also contain some other mineral items like calcium glycerophosphate (which is a source of calcium and phosphorous) and magnesium sterate.

Xlear products can be ordered directly from their website and found in many vitamin, health foods and stores like Whole Foods. The price isn’t bad for one of these fringe products, they usually retail for $1.50 or so per tube. It’d be cool if they offered these in bulk, so you could refill the tubes.

Note: do not allow dogs to consume products with xylitol (well, really don’t let your dogs eat any people food) as it can be toxic. 

Related Candies

1. SparX
2. Canada Wintergreen
3. Runts
4. VerMints
5. Soda Can Fizzy Candy