I was recently contacted by Patrick from Chocolates Para Ti, a Bolivian chocolate manufacturer, asking if I wanted some samples of their bars. Obviously the answer to that was yes, so about a week later a big box arrived on my doorstep straight from their factory, with their entire range of 11 bars inside!

I wasn’t sure what to start with so I decided to go with the order they’re listed on the Chocolates Para Ti website, and that means I go with the Intense Dark Chocolate bar first, considering that dark chocolate isn’t a favourite of mine, this may not necessarily be the best idea.

Now you can read up on Chocolates Para Ti on their website, but to cut a long story short, they’ve just recently opened up their online store and are currently shipping to the United States only. Obviously being based in Bolivia they employ local people and pay them competitive wages as well as having a supplies store on-site that allows their workers to buy essential goods at reduced prices, which is pretty awesome. The website is basic and friendly looking, no frills which is just my sort of thing. They also source nearly all their ingredients from around Bolivia, making this as purely Bolivian as possible, which is a region I’ve not had chocolate from before, so it’s quite exciting.

Like a lot of dark chocolate bars, the wrapper for this is black. There’s a big stamp on it showing that it’s 75% cacao, so while not the most intense bar I’ve ever had, it’s certainly up there. The ingredients are in both English and Spanish which is a nice touch, and the bar itself is 100g. Interestingly the first ingredient listed is not sugar, but instead chocolate liquor, not something I see often in ingredients.

The bar itself comes in a fairly ordinary tablet form. The initial taste is quite sweet and fruity, almost surprisingly non-bitter really. It carries a very strong chocolate taste with just a hint of sweetness. It melts very slowly in the mouth, though I wasn’t able to detect anymore flavours as the piece got smaller and smaller, except for the chocolate flavour getting more intense and bitter towards the end as it melted on my tongue.

I really enjoyed this bar, I won’t deny that I still vastly prefer milk chocolate, but it’s got me quite excited for the rest of the range. I’m not the kind of person to give this bar the justice and attention it deserves, but as a milk chocolate lover, I still found this very pleasant.