Best super dark chocolate

My favorite is Green & Black's 85%. It's got a luscious, silky mouth feel you just don't get from most dark chocolate.

kshama2001 wrote: »

@lynn_glenmont what kind of cocoa powder do you use? I use Equal Exchange. I used to belong to a food coop that ordered from Frontier a few times a year. Cocoa would always go on sale Nov/Dec and I would stock up. It's available other places online, but Frontier's sale prices were the best. I used to give hot cocoa for XMas presents. They have regular, dark (no milk), and spicy, which is a nice change. Spicy has some cinnamon and a tiny bit of hot pepper, and no milk, for those who need to think about that.

Equal Exchange is all about Fair Trade: https://equalexchange.coop/fair-trade

@kshama2001

I don't think we're talking about the same product. I'm talking about plain, unsweetened, nothing added, cocoa powder for baking, not something that you would just add water or milk or nondairy milk to make a drink. Although I use it to make that too -- I like a barely sweetened hot cocoa, with a jolt of cayenne and some cinnamon, maybe a little almond and/or vanilla extract.

That said, I used to use Hershey's for natural cocoa and King Arthur Flour for dutch processed cocoa, before I learned that the commitments on exploitation-free sourcing that I had heard about years ago from major chocolate makers weren't being met. I've been using up what I had on hand, because it doesn't do any good in terms of creating an economic incentive for better behavior to toss what's already been bought, and I recently purchased Equal Exchange organic baking cocoa, so I'm glad to hear that you use some of their products (and I assume are satisfied).

I did look at both Frontier and Black & Green, but I can't remember now why exactly I settled on Equal Exchange. I know the idea of a worker-owned co-op was a plus for Equal Exchange for me. And I think one of the others might not have been Prime eligible (I was ordering from Amazon). I think there was a packaging issue mentioned in a review for one of the other products that sounded like the odds for damage in transit were fairly high. So nothing that suggested the actual cocoa from either of the others wasn't a good product.

Edited to tag kshama2001

kshama2001 wrote: »

My former manager surprised me with a Taza variety pack one day: https://www.amazon.com/Chocolate-Mexicano-Variety-Certified-Organic/dp/B0088OSAZ2/ (not super dark)

Some years later I learned that the factory is in my state, and I've been meaning to take a tour.

They ethically source as well:

https://www.tazachocolate.com/pages/about-taza

Taza is a pioneer in ethical cacao sourcing. We were the first U.S. chocolate maker to establish a third-party certified Direct Trade Cacao Certification program. We maintain direct relationships with our cacao farmers and pay a premium above the Fair Trade price for their cacao. We partner only with cacao producers who respect the rights of workers and the environment.

I like Taza. Not so much for making hot chocolate (that's the product I've seen from them, that you're meant to whip with the little wooden tool to make Mexican style hot chocolate), because I find the chocolate settles out of the liquid pretty quickly. I actually just like to break off a piece and eat it. I find a small piece tends to satisfy me, the way so many others find a small piece of high-end super-dark chocolate does.