Zoo Jellies in Vietnam. Minties in Australia. Marshmallows injected with green apple-flavored goo in Hong Kong. Kit Kats in Italy (some things you just can’t escape). Toblerone, Violet Crumble, Haribo Gummies, Ritter Sport Bars… I am a bit of a traveling fool and there are few thrills greater than walking into a supermercado – or tabbac, or roadside stand made of banana leaves – in a foreign land and alighting upon a rack of exotically enticing treats. So you can imagine my excitement, I’m sure, as well as my course of action, when I found myself in a Costa Rican airport earlier this summer, with a fistful of nonexchangeable colones just waiting to be spent.
It turns out that Costa Rica’s Café Britt, with its line of Chocolates Britt products, has pretty much cornered the San Jose International Airport candy market. And thanks to their very generous attitude towards free samples (much appreciated by the weary traveler), I was able to partake in a number of their delicious gourmet dark and white chocolate covered confections (namely coffee beans, passion fruit, macadamia nuts, pineapple, and cashews) before committing myself to a bag of dark chocolate covered guava jelly and one of dark chocolate covered cacao nibs.
Now, safely Stateside and a couple months removed from my latest adventure, I think it’s about time to relive all the Central American fun. Lucky for you, Candy Addict has a very lenient passport policy, so feel free to join me.
Dark Chocolate Covered Guava
Guava is one of those fruits that I know I’ve tried, can’t remember if I like, and couldn’t pick out in a lineup. It doesn’t strike me as the kind of fruit whose jelly would necessarily lend itself to a chocolate pairing, but then again, what edible isn’t made better with a smack from the ol’ chocolate stick? (Well, I guess there are a few…) But alas, the adventurer in me pushes on.
These little balls, just smaller than a marble, smell of dark chocolate, belying no hint of the fruity goodness within. I gingerly squeezed one, anticipating a gooey mess, and found that the sturdy chocolate took quite a bit more pressure to reveal its almost gummi insides. A more scientific dissection reveals a guava jelly to chocolate ratio roughly equivalent to that of a peanut M&M. And their taste? Quite delicious, in fact. A nice dark chocolate quickly melds with the fruity guava “jelly” creating a flavor somewhat akin to a raspberry-infused chocolate bar, but with a pleasing resilient-but-not-quite-chewy quality (and none of those bastard seeds that I hate). These are definitely good, but also… interesting. Interesting in the kind of way that makes you want to pop another one in your mouth which, coincidentally, is easy to do thanks to their popable little size and shape.
Dark Chocolate Covered Cacao Nibs
Okay, now I have to admit that, while I was intrigued by the guava balls, these were really the big ticket item for me. Chocolate cacao nibs? That is, dark chocolate covered chocolate? Nothing bad there, friends. Upon first glance, these shiny little pebbles of pleasure reminded me vaguely of Nestle Buncha Crunch, with their varying shapes and sizes just begging to be launched across a room and into my mouth (I’m quite the expert at catching sweet nothings in there, I’ll have you know), only much more sophisticated, individual, and gourmet. One tiny morsel and I was hooked.
Just barely enough crunch to know that there was a nib in there, I next reached for a larger one and spliced it a little more carefully, examining the interior. Yep, just a tiny lil’ nib of a nib, but it’s definitely there, lending a very mildly bitter and simultaneously cool sensation to this candy. Oh my, these are good. And popable! Those guava balls have nothing on these babies in the popability category. And not only do I eat them by the handful, but I’ve taken to adding them to my ice cream, too. (And, I daresay, they would be a delicious chocolaty addition to yogurt, cereal, spaghetti and meatballs, whatever your pleasure.) Yep, these go right up there with Pocky Chocolate in the foreign candy contest.
Buy Chocolates Britt Chocolate Online:
- at Amazon.com
I want to try the guava ones, they sound like fun and like you could just pop one right after another.
September 19th, 2008 at 11:46 amThat sampler pack (pic at the top) for $8.99 (plus shipping) looks very tempting.
September 19th, 2008 at 1:15 pmHooray for guava! I feel like the majority of the candy world doesn’t yet appreciate delicious “exotic” fruit flavors like guava, and it makes me happy when they’re embraced. These sound delish, and the nibs sound good too. The only place I’ve been able to get nibs is the Scharffen Berger factory, so hooray for nibs too!
September 20th, 2008 at 12:30 amI’ve had those samples in the airport. The chocolate covered pineapple is my favorite fruit one. My absolute favorite has to be the white chocolate covered coffee beans. Absolutely decadent. Their coffee is one of the best I’ve ever had, you can order that on their website along with your chocolate. All grown right in Costa Rica.
September 22nd, 2008 at 7:25 am