Just tried the Chacao Absolute (70%) and all I can say is WOW, what a difference a little sugar makes! This is fantastic chocolate – coffee, red fruit, plums – delicious! It’s really amazing to see how little bitterness a 70% can have. I am now very excited to try the 90% with sugar crystals and see what others think of it as well – Monte, will there be a review in the near future?

Last time I met a Lindt Excellence 99% there were demerara sugar crystals listed among the ingredients as well as cocoa powder besides cocoa mass. This made me think about whether it can be regarded as unadulterated chocolate. However it was correct, flat and sometimes feeling overroasted but ok.

On the back side of the packaging…Well here in Hungary you can get the Lindt Excellence line in all shops, even in large ones. I think that one came from a Tesco. Yesterday, just to check it out, I jumped to the usual local food store and bought a 85% also because I was excited about the reviews read here and wanted to recheck it (last time I tasted it a year ago but was not very fond of, as the texture was like eating flour). They did not have 99% and as I remember the 99%’s ingredient list was different, but the 85% is made up of: cocoa paste, defatted cocoa powder (I wonder whether it is dutched or not!), cocoa butter, demerara sugar, and vanilla. Even if we consider the use of cocoa powder forgiveable in in making a chocolate bar, the use of simple demerara sugar is also questionable, as it can alter the taste. That’s why Amedei and others use refined cane sugar to avoid possible taste fingerprints of unrefined sugar. But back to the ’99% there were crystals as I remember, and the cocoa powder is sure.
Am I too much of a purist?
Forgot to tell that checked CuoreNero: this is a bluff of an artificial sweetener maker company to sell more. All the bars I have seen are made with 100% cocoa paste and the well known tripeptide: NutraSweet, some containing also other sweeteners. Do they put it into the 101th percent? ;)

FYI, I stopped into the Lindt store on 5th Ave in NYC today and they didn’t have their 99% bar in stock; however, the salesperson assured me that it didn’t contain sugar crystals of any kind. I can’t imagine Lindt chocolate in 99% – the 85% is more than strong and acid enough.

At last something becomes clearer. It must be some regional difference in 85% Lindt formula, and not a major difference in our palates! Lindt here, in UK has that additional “fat reduced cocoa powder and demerara sugar among the ingredients, so taste we keep complaining about here, may not reach you at all, Monte. And 99% Lindt here lists demerara sugar as well.

Really interesting. 70% is just cocoa mass, cocoa butter, sugar, soy lecithine and vanilla. At least, here. I can imagine everything from Lindt after I have seen their one of their immense factories near Milan.

Ellie wrote about the 85%. Its composition is the same in Europe but different in the US. I wrote now about the 70% that is different from both the 99% and the 85%. The 85% contains cocoa powder that is not there in the 70%.
Back to the 100s-what is your opinion about Rovira, and what do you know about the cocoa he uses for the bars? I know that he uses Sao Tomé single plantation cocoa only for his 2 showboxes, KKO and Making Off Cocoa. I liked his 100s a lot, although Slitti 100 remains my favourite.

I think Rovira still sources from Choco Vic.

“Porcelana: The Holy Grail of Pure Criollos” (Maricel E. Presilla)