This bar pairs Madagascan cacao with freshly roasted coffee, and the fruitiness of the cacao keeps it from feeling heavy despite the intensity of the roast. Aroma leads with a pronounced, warming coffee character that never fully swallows the cacao underneath.
As it melts, ripe red fruit and gentle caramel come through first, followed by a nutty bitterness that builds gradually towards the finish. The coffee’s warmth lingers well after the last bite, while the cacao keeps things bright rather than letting the roast dominate. The finish felt genuinely layered rather than one-note, which is what set it apart from other coffee blends tried previously.
It is a very good coffee chocolate, and worth seeking out, but there is nothing groundbreaking here, and it’s worth noting the coffee used is a blend rather than a single origin — a point of comparison against MayHawk’s Midnight Espresso, which pairs a specific cacao and coffee origin together, rather than a general blend, and then works both beans to compliment each other.
Overall, a well-balanced, aromatic bar for anyone who enjoys the classic coffee-and-dark-chocolate pairing, even if it doesn’t push the format forward. In summary, J. Cocoa with this bar has delivered a very good example of a common chocolate pairing.
Overall Rating: 7 out of 10