Chocolate Wars: Lidl's J.D. Gross minis

Shortly before 8 a.m. a small crowd had gathered outside the new Lidl store, located just a few miles from us. We were there so DH could take advantage of the low low price on a 400 Gig hard drive, a steal at only Eur 149. Since we were going directly on to work afterward, I was along for the ride.

One couple eyed us suspiciously as they guarded their place in line, perhaps fearing that we would dash ahead of them to grab the last of the metal rooster and angelfish garden decor, which is all they ultimately bought that morning. I sized up the competition (who else might be there to grab the electronics, always in limited supply?). The last time Lidl sold laptops, there were reports of minor riots outside of store before they opened that day.

No one besides our garden decor friends and a couple of people who stood outside the door for the bottle recycling kiosk. The church bells rang, signaling 8 a.m, and we entered.

As DH searched for the electronics display, I browsed the chocolate aisle. Interesting. Lidl offers several different flavors of plantation chocolate, and today they had a lovely bag of minatures.

If there's anything I like it's chocolate. If there's anything I like better than chocolate, it's chocolate in bite-sized pieces, so I can enjoy several flavors without eating a lot of any single one.Today, I pit each flavor in the bag against the other. The terms of battle?

• Smell


• Color


• Smoothness


• Aftertaste

Lidl's J.D. Gross chocolate is made by Rausch Schokolade.
http://www.rausch-schokolade.de/ (Rausch you can order online. Check out their Chocoholics selection, with their nice wooden boxes)

The Results

Amazonas (upper left corner)
Smell: rich and dark. score: 4
Color: dark score: 4
Smoothness: smooth, with a slight powder feel. Score: 3
Aftertaste: mild, pleasant. Score: 3

Trinidad (upper center)
Smell: milder. score: 3
Color: darker, but not the best score: 4
Smoothness: no powder feel. Score: 5
Aftertaste: medium, with a very slight astringency. Score: 4

Ecuador (upper right corner)
Smell: rich and dark. score: 4
Color: darkest score: 5
Smoothness: a little grain of something. Score: 1
Aftertaste: rather like a black tea. Score 3

Java (lower left corner)
Smell: almost nothing. score: 1
Color: very light score: 1
Smoothness: smooth. Score: 5
Aftertaste: clean. Score 3

Madagaskar (lower center)
Smell: nice and cocoa-y. score: 3
Color: dark score: 3
Smoothness: very smooth. score: 5
Aftertaste: creamy. score: 4

Venezuela (lower right corner)
Smell: dark and a little sharp. score: 4
Color: dark score: 3
Smoothness: Smooth, slight powder feel. Score 4
Aftertaste: a pleasant bitterness. Score: 4

And the winner is: Trinidad! A rich dark chocolate with enough of a good aftertaste to let you know you enjoyed it. I do have to confess that I also love the Madagaskar chocolate. I'll probably buy both in the larger bars.