I’d never heard of Salazon chocolate before a co-worker told me that was basically the only chocolate he ate. But let’s be honest, it’s not that weird that I hadn’t heard of them-we really don’t review a lot of chocolate here at Gurus HQ. The reason? : (Cover your ears, confectioners) they’re kinda all the same. 65% cacao, 72% cacao…and so on. And so forth. I’m not in any way condemning chocolate, but I am calling bullshit on the semi recent tidal wave of chocolate hype the U.S. has had to endure. We get it. There’s a lot of options. And yes, I get that there’s a wide variety of quality among the chocolate landscape, but just for fun, imagine giving a 10 year old 20 different dark chocolate bars. Do ya think he/she could tell any of them apart?  I’l field this one:  no. No, they couldn’t. My kid is a junior Guru, and there’s no chance.  Still though, I had to reach out to Salazon. Due diligence and all that jazz.

Feast your eyes. Take a look at their names. See a common thread?  FINALLY a line of chocolate I can get behind, seriously. Because of the salt. Sweet, lovely, subtle, powerful salt.

All of these bars have sea salt in them, and that’s something I absolutely agree with. I was definitely encouraged at that point. Not to get too overwhelmed, I decided to focus on three bars for the purpose of this review:

From left to right: turbinado cane sugar, crushed organic coffee, and on the right, just plain old sea salt.  The first two of course also include sea salt, but I left that out for brevity. And now I’ve gone and used even more words to explain it. I can’t get out of my own way.

Take a look at the backs of these three beasts. The Turbinado sugar on the left are like stones, punctuating the surface. The coffe in the middle is just plain crazy looking. And on the right, we see things as normal as they get with Salazon. Let’s start with the Turbinado.

I was skeptical about this one. Sugar on chocolate?  Yet this was the one my buddy claimed as his favorite. And wow. It’s a beautiful experience. The sugar isn’t too sweet, and it serves the chocolate very well. And the crunch on it?  Just perfect. The flavor of the chocolate came out bright and strong. I really enjoyed this one.

But not as much as this one:

Oh cofeee. Sweet, savory, complicated coffee. Of course it pairs well with chocolate, we knew that. But scores of flaky organic coffee, all over the bar?  Again, a texture victory. And the dark richness of the coffee is just delicious. In the best way, it reminds me of the most luscious coffee ice cream you’ve ever had.

We end up full circle, with what I assume is Salazon’s most “normal” bar.  Sea salt only.  This one really showcases the flavor of the chocolate without any delicious distractions. Also, I found the amount of salt on this bar to be a bit less than the others,  which furthered the focus to the chocolate itself.  Extremely creamy, rich, yet with a lot of contrast, since it’s far from overly sweet. Delicious.

Funny…I haven’t mentioned yet that these bars are all dark chocolate. Does that even need to be said anymore?

I have to say, these chocolate bars wowed the crap out of me. My household buys chocolate semi regularly, but now…I think this will fall in our cart every time we’re somewhere that sells them.  If you claim to be a chocolate lover (I’m talking to you, Dad!), you owe it to yourself to check Salazon out. I highly recommend clicking the link below and buying their very reasonably priced sampler pack.