Zak's Chocolate: Coffee Break Bar

One of the great things about Zak's Chocolate is that not only do they value using quality ingredients, they also look to other local companies when it comes to those ingredients. They're always doing colabs with other places in the area, whether it's for peanut butter or stout or in this case coffee. In so doing, they create a network hub of interrelated products in which the various small businesses can refer customers to one another. The coffee in this Coffee Break Bar comes from Bergies Coffee in Gilbert. I find myself wishing I lived closer to Gilbert because just a quick look into Bergies online shows that they, too, have some great company values.

Back to this chocolate bar. It comes with the same wonderful cocoa pod design I've come across before, this time with the aroma of strong and freshly ground coffee. The color is a little light for dark chocolate but also a little dark for milk chocolate--more like the shade of candy dark chocolate. Fittingly so: this is a 55% dark chocolate with the added milk and coffee. That's certainly a different and intriguing approach. There are so many definitions about how chocolate must be done. If it's under this percentage, it has to have milk; it it's over that percentage, it shouldn't have milk. Etc. But why shouldn't chocolate with a higher cocoa content have milk?

It tastes instantly of chocolate and coffee. The coffee is strong and bright and the chocolate does come with a milkiness to it. While not actually bitter, the coffee is what I would liken to the bitter element, and the chocolate while also not sweet per se gives that sense of sweetness and creaminess. Since it is in fact dark chocolate, there is nothing of greasiness to this chocolate and it has more depth of flavor than even a high quality and higher cocoa content milk chocolate. As such, it is able to hold its own against the coffee while also giving that creamier element reminiscent of a mixed coffee beverage.

The flavor is completely smooth. No coffee grounds or anything in here. Just smooth, rich, and creamy chocolate tasting of coffee. I would easily say that this is my favorite coffee chocolate bar ever. Both the chocolate and coffee are excellent and the composition is unique and perfect. Milky dark chocolate filled with coffee is quite the indulgence.