Guittard L’Harmonie Semisweet Chocolate
September 28, 2015
Guittard chocolate company is based out of California, started in San Francisco by Etienne Guittard in the mid-1800s.
According to their website, www.guittard.com, Guittard left Tournus, France, hoping to strike it rich during the California Gold Rush. He brought chocolate from his uncle’s factory to trade for supplies but soon had the wealthy miners paying for it.
Eventually, he headed back to France to fine tune his craft and returned to San Francisco to open his own chocolate business.
What The Packaging Says
The packaging for the Guittard chocolate bar is full of great information. Front and center on the packaging is the name of the bar (L’Harmonie) with the percentage of cacao (64%) and a description of the chocolate’s flavor notes.
It reads: “Semisweet chocolate with floral aromatics and tart fruit notes.” A more detailed list is found on the back of the bar. It goes on to say, “A complex and effulgent chocolate with peaks of tart fruit and cherry top notes. Floral aromatics lead to a lingering astringency with chocolatey end notes.”
My Thoughts About The L’Harmonie Semisweet Bar
Well, I was intrigued! I was especially curious about the descriptive word, ‘tart’.
I don’t think I have ever used that to describe a chocolate, although I’ve come close when it included dried cranberries or a red fruit filling. This chocolate has no inclusions or fillings, so I tried real hard to pay attention to those tart fruit notes...
...I didn’t taste any!
I may not have tasted ‘tart fruit’ top notes, but I did taste soft cherry notes with a hint of nuttiness.
Also, the “floral aromatics” were pretty subdued, and this would not have been my first thought as I sniffed and smelled the bar before eating. There were definitely chocolatey end notes, but I disagree with the lingering astringency at the end. I found it more oily than astringent.
Let me make another comment about ‘oily’. This is not a typical descriptor that I would use, but I actually found my mouth coated with a thin layer of cocoa butter on my last swallow.
This could be due to a high percentage of added cocoa butter to the formula. The chocolate melted in my mouth so fast that the flavor delivery is too quick to really enjoy the flavor notes. Perhaps that’s why the ‘tart fruit’ eluded me - it may have slipped through undetected.
Regardless of my comments relative to the description on the packaging, I did enjoy this chocolate bar, overall. I liked it enough to share it, which is good; but if I had loved it, I would’ve kept it for myself! Get it? I know many of you can understand that!
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