After reviewing the Coffee Milk Chocolate Bar, Divine got in touch with me and offered to send me all of the other bars in their range, after agreeing (of course) I received them a few days later, and here is our first, a dark chocolate bar made from 70% cocoa solids.

Like all of Divine’s bars, this is made from Fairtrade cocoa beans from cooperative farmers in Ghana. The cocoa is grown in the rainforests and then fermented and dried in the sun. The bar does contain soya and may contain milk, nuts and gluten so it’s not something you’d perhaps want to risk if you’re allergic to any of those (Divine make a hazelnut bar, hence the warning).

Everything on the ingredients is fairtrade – Cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter and vanilla. “99% ingredients certified to internal Fairtrade standards”, according to the bar. But I’ve waxed lyrical enough about all of that, onto the actual bar itself. It’s a black/gold colour, which is typical for dark chocolate bars, no complaints from me there.

Opening the thick foil wrapper reveals a bar slightly darker than normal milk chocolate, and with a nice smell to it. The bar is all scuffed and chipped on the backside, which doesn’t bother me, but does make the bar look much less inviting, an alternative slant is that it gives it a raw, almost bean to bar look, but that’s not my opinion.

The bar doesn’t taste like a 70% cocoa solids bar. It has the taste of it, but very little of the bitterness. I can taste the dark chocolate flavour, that deep, earthy flavour, but it’s just not quite getting through, as the bar ends up being quite sweet as it melts, with the sugar kicking in rather than the cocoa solids.

Personally this suits me fine, as I’m not the biggest fan of chocolate when it becomes “too dark”, usually anywhere over 70%. I quite liked this bar and recommend it to anyone who’s looking to get into darker chocolates without going too far, and of course all the fairtrade and ethics give this an extra bargaining chip over some other chocolate manufacturers.