Tasting Notes – Scharffen Berger Extra Rich Milk

Mmmmm! The promise of extra rich milk enticed me to this bar, my first from Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker, an American company founded in 1997 and acquired by Hershey’s in 2005.

I found the chocolate to be quite simple, delicious yes, but I wouldn’t call it “extra rich”. It tastes about the same as grocery store brands (Lindt, Godiva, Ghiradelli, American Cadbury’s) but maybe not as sweet. It lingers a little more on the tongue and tastes more “dark” in flavour than milk chocolate. It boasts hints of luxurious caramel, but I did not pick this up.  I did like the texture though, quite meltable. It is definitely more cocoa than sugar, similar to Ghana’s Golden Tree. This would be a good chocolate bar to melt down and make chocolate cornflake clusters is what I was thinking as I ate it though.

Please note that I would have hesitated to pick up this bar had I known it’s a Hershey’s company. I dislike Hershey chocolate! That said I do realize that American Cadbury’s is a sub-division of Hershey so while better than regular Hershey chocolate it pales in comparison to British Cadbury.

But I found the company’s history quite fascinating.It was founded by family physician and chocolate connoisseur Robert Steinberg who when diagnosed with lymphoma decided to quit medicine and dedicate himself to chocolate-making. He partnered with known winemaker and entrepreneur John Scharffenberger and voila!, created the first American “bean-to-bar” chocolate manufacturer in the past half-century. Ghana is one of the countries they get their beans from and I can’t help feel unimpressed that they do not use cocoa products already processed (cocoa mass, cocoa liquor etc) which would help local economies better, you know that whole Western world pillaging natural resources of the Thirld World syndrome (or inferiority complex depending on your viewpoint).

Type: milk
Cocoa content: 41% min
Notable ingredient(s): n/a
Origin: n/a
Country: USA
Ingredients: cacao beans, sugar, milk, cocoa butter, non-fat milk, non-GMO soy lecithin, whole vanilla beans