Sorry for not posting as often as I should, but life was getting in the way of blogging for a bit. It will probably continue to do so somewhat, but I'm going to try to get back into the swing of things.

The first step to getting things back to normal and posting back to more than a once-a-week affair is tonight's brief review. I went to Trader Joe's looking for something to munch on but wasn't finding much that caught my eye. I almost left without chocolate entirely but I caught the words "Sao Tome" out of the corner of my eye and my curiosity forced me to take a better look. It seems that Trader Joe's has slipped into the world of single origin chocolate without my noticing. Having already tried out two Sao Tome bars I decided that I would give this one a shot and see how it compared.

The first thing I need to mention is the size of this beast. It is a 7oz bar, which is well above the norm. Most of the bars I see are around 3oz. This is just huge. It's been a week since I first opened it so I can't say much for the aroma. Snapping a piece doesn't reveal much to me, but I think there is a little coffee to it. The bar is well formed and moderately glossy and seems to have a snap to it. It's kind of hard to tell the snap given how thick it is. The taste is really a strange mixed bag. I can tell it's Sao Tome. I was really surprised to taste it and be able to say, "Yep, that's some Sao Tome there." but for some reason I could tell. Beyond that it is strong and bitter and once the bitterness lets up it starts in with sour. Kind of a spoiled milk kind of thing going on in there and I really didn't like it. Add to that the fact that it is really pretty astringent, sort of grainy, and hurts my mouth and I really didn't have that positive an experience. I want to like it, but it really doesn't do much for me.

I was surprised that I found the bar to be so disappointing and decided to go back to my Sao Tome standard and grabbed one of the Lake Champlain bars to compare the two. It really was like night and day. The Lake Champlain was very smooth and much more enjoyable. The Trader Joe's bar just wasn't up to snuff as far as I'm concerned. I just can't bring myself to like it. It may just be a matter of taste, but for me this just didn't do it. I'll give it a six out of ten. It wasn't horrible, but you won't see me buying it again either.