Green Tea Chocolate - Green Kiss from Life in Teacup

I recently received a bunch of tea samples from one of my favorite tea companies, Life in Teacup, which I am in the process of sampling and writing about. In addition to the samples of tea, I received a sample of Green Kiss green tea chocolate. The chocolate, which is made in Germany, is pictured here:



My Review:

I have not sampled any tea-flavored chocolate before. I am, however, a huge fan of coffee-flavored chocolate, and green tea ice cream, which are the two closest products to which to compare this flavored chocolate. My impressions are:

• Flavor is much more like white chocolate than any other kind of chocolate; there's no cocoa content, just the cocoa butter and its flavor. My intuition is that you'll be more likely to enjoy this chocolate if you enjoy white chocolate.


• The green tea presence is also very creamy: there's little bitterness, and not much of the characteristic grassy quality either. Very vegetal, however.


• Overall, it was much more like Matcha-flavored ice cream than like any other chocolate or flavored white chocolate that I've had.

Did I like it? Honestly, I wasn't crazy about it: it was too sweet and creamy. I like both chocolate and tea for its bold bitterness. Japanese green teas can be quite brisk and fresh tasting, and this was just too weak for me. Also, the texture of the chocolate was too soft for me. I think this reflects too low a cocoa butter content (cocoa butter is very hard) and perhaps too much emulsifier (soy lecithin?). I like the chocolate to melt slowly in my mouth, allowing the strong flavor to release gradually. This one melts too quickly and doesn't have enough flavor, leading to an unsatisfying experience.

Others, however, may love the texture: my own tastes in chocolate are peculiar and I notice that most people complain that my favorite chocolates are too bitter and too hard and chalky-textured for them.

If I were to try making my own green tea chocolate, perhaps by tweaking the recipe for this one, I'd choose a tea with more bitterness, use a higher cocoa butter content and less of the emulsifying agents. And I'd include less sugar. I like my chocolate to be just a notch of sweetness above baking chocolate. Again, my tastes probably differ from most people's, so I'd predict that most people would enjoy this green tea chocolate as-is, much more than I did.

You can buy this green tea chocolate on Life in Teacup's website.