I always have trouble starting to write a review (almost as much as taking decent pictures). There are only so many ways you can say, “Hey, I bought some chocolate!” Eventually you just don’t know what else to say. You just don’t quite know how to open things up.

So, umm... guess what? I bought some chocolate!

The selection of treats at Whole Foods Market doesn’t seem to change a whole lot and around here it’s about the best thing going (that I’m aware of) so when something new shows up on the shelf I tend to get a little excited. So, when I found the lovely products of sweetriot (lower case intentional) waiting for me on a recent trip to the store I was quite a happy camper.

sweetriot make nibs (which they describe as cocoa ‘peaces’) covered in chocolate in one of three cacao percentages: a mellow 50% semi-dark, a more intense 65% dark (which I bought), and one more step up to 70% dark. All this nibby goodness is delivered in a small metal tin that reminds me of the metal boxes we used to get Band-Aids in (do they still make those metal boxes?) only smaller. And with a cooler lid. And cool art gracing the label on the tin. And lovely chocolate-covered nibs inside. And little cacao facts on a strip of paper (much like that in a fortune cookie) lurking among the nibs. It’s a miracle of marketing. Compact and attractive and filled with chocolaty goodness.

And speaking of chocolaty goodness (transitions are easier than openings I guess) their nibs are coated with a lot of chocolate. In the past I might have considered this a bad thing (I like nibs – a lot) but these really feel like a great amount of chocolate per nib. It makes for a nice balance between the chocolate and the nib. It’s good chocolate, too. I feel a hair guilty because I didn’t really give the chocolate a lot of thought and can’t even begin to describe it. It was good and plentiful. It was the sort of chocolate you eat and eat and then wonder where it all went. As there is only one serving per tin (and a paltry 140 calories) it is easy to eat them all before you know what happened to them. I had to hide them from myself so I would have a few left for the picture.

But wait, there’s more! Not only do they make great chocolate covered nibs in lovely tins with cool art and cacao factoids hidden within, but they do it all in a all natural and ethical fashion! Their product is all natural, kosher, dairy-free, gluten-free, GMO-free and produced in accord with the principles of Fair Trade (they are working on getting their Fair Trade certification). At first I found all of this horribly out of sync with the little tin that they were using for their packaging. I felt that if they insist on using these admittedly cool tins that they should be either recyclable or they should at least give you the option of sending the tin back to them. Well, guess what? A quick trip to their site shows that they are indeed recyclable and they do indeed allow you to send you tins back in and they also give you some nice hints for how to reuse the tins!

Great chocolate, great packaging, and great attitude. All this for the low, low price of only $6.00 (though Cybele has seen them in the wild for $5.00). Wait a tic. The tin only contains 1oz. A quick check on the old calculator would tend to put the price of these nibs at $96/lb ($80/lb if you buy at $5/tin). Yee-OUCH! That is not cheap. Cybele noted this as well in her review. Dagoba’s nibs run $36/lb, Scharffen Berger nibs run about $28.50, and Santander’s nibs run under $22/lb (darn, I have to try these now).

The price differential is kind of extreme, but only sweetriot comes in such a convenient, snack-sized tin of unsurpassed loveliness. At the end of the day it’s a great product with beautiful, convenient packaging in a prefect single serving size and whether it’s for you depends on what price you place on convenience. I loved these nibs a lot and was absolutely planning on buying more prior to thinking about the price. Even after thinking about the price I still want to buy more, but I’m also looking at alternatives (and feeling bad for doing so). Ignoring price this is a solid 9 out of 10. What effect the price has on that number is up to you. And whatever you think of the price, check their site out. Even if the price is a little steep for your blood they have very cool t-shirts.

Ok, so I love the product and think the price is more than a little high, but I see some potential options here. The tins are lovely and I could easily see them selling a more collectible style tin with more of the art on them. A sweetriot art pack (or at least some extra stickers with just the art on them). I also think that given their stance on reuse/recycling they should offer a big bag so you can refill your own tin. If you do an even cooler tin and give us the option to refill it with more sweetriot nibs bought in bulk for a (hopefully much) lower price then that would be spectacular. Not that they don’t have a great product, I just look for potential and, honestly, was thinking how great it would be to buy a big bag of Dagoba Xocolatl nibs and drag them around in my sweetriot tin – which I’m sure isn’t the type of reuse that they want to encourage. The availability of a big fat bag of sweetriot nibs would help keep thoughts like that out of my mind. That's my two cents for what it’s worth (not much, I'm sure).