I admit it; I'm a chocolate snob. What does this mean? It means at least three things. One, I love chocolate. Two, I know the difference between great chocolate, good chocolate and mediocre chocolate (whether there is any "bad" chocolate is, in my mind, an unresolved issue). Three, I prefer the great chocolates.
As such, I am always in pursuit of the best chocolate money can buy. My personal tastes run to dark chocolates. The stronger and less sweet the better. The higher percentage of cocoa solids or cocoa liquor the better. Lucky for me, the market is rich with ultra-strong chocolates these days, a situation which just wasn't true two or three years ago. Sadly, real life keeps me too busy to do many reviews these days, but I do expect someday to put up reviews of some of those ultra- strong products.
Darkness works only to a point, of course. Sandra Boynton in her book Chocolate: The Consuming Passion advocates learning to like unsweetened baker's chocolate. Doing so has the advantage that no one will ask you to share it with them more than once. I've tried it, and while I can stand baker's chocolate I really find that I get a lot more sense of the chocolate flavor when the bitterness is cut with some sugar.
With that said, the point of this page is to give my critical appraisal of all the chocolate I can get my hands on. Some of the best stuff is hard to find, but well worth it if you share this particular passion with me. In addition, I have provided some other information relating to chocolate in general that I think people might find interesting.