New Tree Chocolate, originally uploaded by Ayala Moriel.

I spotted these miniature chocolate packages at Capers yesterday, and couldn't resist getting a couple to try (they were placed right before the checkout, of course, the oldest trick in the book and they still manage to get me!). As you can see, they are $3.79 for a little sample package for a chocaholic on-the-go of three little chocolate tablets weighing 9gr each. These made-in-Belgium chocolates (for the US based company New Tree) are not organic, and rather pricey in my humble opinion.

I picked two to try:

Tranquility (milk chocolate with lavender) and Renew (dark 73% chocolate with cassis). I wouldn't have picked the lavender one unless it was for one of my chocolate truffle workshop students who raved about a lavender infused hot chocolate, and the lavender infused steam milk that she now drinks before bed time. I had to try it just for her!

The list of ingredients on the Tranquility mentioned natural lavender flavour and lime blossoms extracts. The term "natural lavender flavour" seems quite suspicious, especially after tasting it. It was quite awful and I have a feeling that rather than just putting in some lavender extract or essential oil, there is a lot more to it, and it ruins the flavour. It tastes artificial, somehow.

Renew, the blackccurant one, lists "blackcurrant with other natural flavour" and "grape extract". Maybe there is real blackcurrant there, maybe not. It's hard to tell with this kind of labeling. But what I am sure about is that it tasted marvellous.

I am not too keen to try the other flavours, because most of them did not make sense to me so to speak. I absolutlely don't dig their "Forgiveness" - dark chocolate with lemon, which sounds quite unforgivable to me. Ginger in chocolate does not appeal to me either as a flavour, and the other more agreeable and sensible choices were simply non-original (bitter orange with milk chocolate; coffee with dark chocolate or cinnamon and milk chocolate). But the cassis one was quite something, so I may come back for more.

Otherwise, the marriage between aromatherapy and chocolate craving seems quite scary to me...