Ibarra

Ibarra is a strange chocolate for me to review. That's because it is not, strictly speaking, an eating chocolate. It is designed to be and is sold as a chocolate specifically for making hot cocoa. If I had written the history of chocolate section yet, and you had read it, you would realize how historical that makes this chocolate. In what way is it not an eating chocolate? Well, its texture, primarily. This chocolate makes no pretense at being smooth, and is in fact extremely rough. The sugar in it is ordinary granular sugar like you probably have in your pantry. There is no cocoa butter. The ingredient list is: sugar, cocoa nibs, cinnamon, and lecithin. You'll notice that it's cocoa nibs instead of cocoa powder. well, they mean it. The little brown chunks in this chocolate are, as far as I can tell, actually little cocoa bean bits. And of course cinnamon isn't a typical ingredient in eating chocolate either.

So the texture, compared to other chocolates, is terrible. The cocoa nibs aren't ground at all finely, so the flavor is not super chocolaty like many of the really strong chocolates I've reviewed. It's got cinnamon in it (which isn't a cardinal sin, but which I would probably disapprove of in a real eating chocolate). So by all measures that I've been rating the other chocolates, Ibarra would have to come in dead last.

However, I still really like it. You'll always find some in my pantry. Why is this? Well, despite its shortcomings, it's really good. And it makes delicious hot chocolate. It is, in fact, one of two hot chocolates that I will actually drink. Also, it has a certain sentimental value to me. When I was very small, my mother would get Ibarra chocolate once in a while (we weren't rich or anything, so it was a special treat for me), and she would make delicious hot cocoa with it, and sometimes when she wasn't home I'd eat it plain. Those are fond memories and probably influence my enjoyment of it now. So be it.

So while it's not the best chocolate in the world, that's why it gets a 2.0 and isn't dead last in the ratings. Also, a 2.0 rating does not do justice, in my opinion, to the actual experience of Ibarra chocolate itself. Sometimes rating systems aren't adequate to their tasks. I think you should try it if you can find it. And if you do, be sure to make the hot cocoa recipe that's on the box; it's really good.