Dark
by Dove
Impact
Dove Dark in a tale of good news / bad news to justify the heresy of its entrance into The Chocolate Census housing the most premium chocolate ratings & reviews online -- or off.
Dove... the "gold standard" for cheap mass-produced fodder in the USA. Winner of a couple blind-tastings pitting it against some much more artisanal & expensive competition.
Judges on those sensory panels can neither see nor, apparently, taste because the only award this earns would come from some S.A.D. veterans (Standard American Diet) anesthetized by buckets of so much salt 'n sugar that assaults the grill from MickeyDs to Appleby's.
As such, Dove "Dark" serves as a reference tool against which independent artisan barsmiths can compare themselves, to gauge just how much differentiation exists between Big Candy & "fine chocolate".
The good news: the gap between the two is real (though less gaping than some might wish).
Is it enough however to warrant a 4 to 8 fold differential in price? The bulk of the consumer market has answered with a resounding... show more »
Dove... the "gold standard" for cheap mass-produced fodder in the USA. Winner of a couple blind-tastings pitting it against some much more artisanal & expensive competition.
Judges on those sensory panels can neither see nor, apparently, taste because the only award this earns would come from some S.A.D. veterans (Standard American Diet) anesthetized by buckets of so much salt 'n sugar that assaults the grill from MickeyDs to Appleby's.
As such, Dove "Dark" serves as a reference tool against which independent artisan barsmiths can compare themselves, to gauge just how much differentiation exists between Big Candy & "fine chocolate".
The good news: the gap between the two is real (though less gaping than some might wish).
Is it enough however to warrant a 4 to 8 fold differential in price? The bulk of the consumer market has answered with a resounding... show more »
Appearance 4.7 / 5
| Color: | there's black 'n blue, then there's this blackened-brown |
| Surface: |
 a virtual chain-link of perfect anal beans up a choco-mummy
|
| Temper: | crazy shine |
| Snap: | right on cue |
Aroma 6.1 / 10
Big Candy: Snickers™ snuck into a Dove™ wrapper (both Mars' bars - they probably sleep together at the factory), drunk on Bourbon (vanilla, that is)
Mouthfeel 9.3 / 15
| Texture: | stiff fudge |
| Melt: | toothpacking gum |
Flavor 30.7 / 50
grousing vanilla -> snickering peanut with murky cocoa back -> twists around some caramel lite -> bitter-free black cocoa -> runs off toward almond skin
Quality 10.9 / 20
Obviously alkalized, manipulated, & engineered for the checkout counter at every drugstore chain in the country.
The manifold defects -- from bulk-grade beans to industrial-noir processing -- professionally covered up by the cosmeticians / morticians at Mars™ so that the charred remains of this cocoa-corpse recede into the burnt shadows while the fake flavors come forward like some re-animated specter. Then buttered & sugared over as expressed by a CBS (Cocoa mass / Butter / Sugar ratio) of approximately 2:3:4.
A "Dark Chocolate" tricked with milk fat & enough artificial flavoring to closely map the American palate that hankers for Milk Choc with nuts to thus qualify this under the Flavored / Dark-Milk category.
What Disney World is to the plant & animal kingdom, this is to chocolate: a jacked-up simulate.
ING: sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, milk fat, soy lecithin, natural & artificial flavors
Reviewed May 3, 2012
The manifold defects -- from bulk-grade beans to industrial-noir processing -- professionally covered up by the cosmeticians / morticians at Mars™ so that the charred remains of this cocoa-corpse recede into the burnt shadows while the fake flavors come forward like some re-animated specter. Then buttered & sugared over as expressed by a CBS (Cocoa mass / Butter / Sugar ratio) of approximately 2:3:4.
A "Dark Chocolate" tricked with milk fat & enough artificial flavoring to closely map the American palate that hankers for Milk Choc with nuts to thus qualify this under the Flavored / Dark-Milk category.
What Disney World is to the plant & animal kingdom, this is to chocolate: a jacked-up simulate.
ING: sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, milk fat, soy lecithin, natural & artificial flavors
Reviewed May 3, 2012