Bar: Dick Taylor 73% Dark with Fleur de Sel | Northerner Blend
Maker: Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate
Chocolate Percentage: 73%
Price: $9.50 per 57g / 2oz bar (online)
Ingredients: Cacao*, Cane Sugar*, Fleur de Sel (*Organic)
Additional Notes: Chocolate Origin: Northerner Blend – Brazil & Madagascar

Packaging: The main focus on the front of the packaging has a block print drawing of a sailboat with its crew on the flat deck navigating the vessel in the expansive ocean with some picturesque clouds. Dick Taylor’s company logo and the name of the bar take the blank space in the sky about the boat.

Compared to the other chocolate bars, the back of this packaging is relatively simple. Another mostly black and white etching shows two workers harvesting salt. There are a few more informational details, like the fact that the salt in the bar is hand-harvested Guatamala sea salt by Bitterman Salt Co., and that the chocolate was handcrafted using traditional European techniques in Humboldt County, California. There is even a batch no stamped on. However, you’d have to go to the website to learn that the chocolate is a blend of Brazilian and Madagascan cacao sweetened with Brazilian cane sugar. The website also gives additional details about “Northerner Blend”, which I guess is their name for this chocolate bar.

The chocolate is wrapped in a gold plastic with the signature Dick Taylor diamond and designs that are also etched into the surface of the chocolate itself. I’d say this inner packaging and the design of the bar itself are more exquisite than the two previous bars. The back of the chocolate bar is smooth and does not have the imprint design.

Appearance: The front of the bar had a nice dark brownish red color with some little splotches of brighter red tints. The back of the bar was a noticeably lighter shade of brown. It looked like it bloomed. You could also see the flecks of sea salt on the back of the chocolate bar.
Aroma: Nothing besides the chocolate and sea salt. It is a two ingredient bar after all.
Melt & Snap: The chocolate didn’t melt at all and had a hard snap. I even felt like I had to chew the chocolate to eat it.
Flavor: I was fairly disappointed by the lack of flavor in this chocolate, which was easily overpowered by the sea salt. Both the texture and the taste make leads me to believe that despite the Best Before date not passing yet, the chocolate had turned bad while in transport or something wasn’t processed correctly. Before writing off Dick Taylor chocolate, I would want to try a different bar.