Ombar Break the Mould to Create Chocolate Enlightenment
When it comes to chocolate are we really getting the best from the cocoa beans? Many companies overheat their beans and lose all the goodness from their bars. Some add cream and sugar until the original bean becomes less of a chocolate bar and more a butter bar, with little nutrition left.
But at Ombar they take their cocoa a little more seriously and treat their beans with a lot more care, to produce a great selection of 'new' chocolate that should suit every taste.
At Ombar they are replacing slabs of fatty, sugary candy (because you can't really call it chocolate) with small but powerful, nutritiously delicious, raw cocoa bars.
Ombars are raw chocolate bars, infused with nutritionally brilliant ingredients - from bio live cultures to powerful berries. Only ever using premium organic raw cacao and 100% natural ingredients Ombar deliver a stunning range of flavours, from Acai & Blueberry to Lemon & Green Tea.
We taste-tested six bars: Acai & Blueberry, Strawberries & Cream, Lemon & Green Tea, Coconut 60%, Dark 72% and Coco Mylk.
Starting with the Dark 72%, an organic raw dark chocolate with bio live cultures, we note how different this is to a standard commercial dark bar. It still has a bitter edge and is hard and brittle, perfect for dark chocolate lovers but a bit too dark if you prefer chocolate in milk varieties. (511.7kcal/100g)
The Coco Mylk is quite the contrast. Organic raw chocolate and coconut cream with bio live cultures create a softer, more creamy chocolate effect and resemble a 'Bounty' experience. A nice smooth bar without too much coconut dominating the flavour. (544.8kcal/100g)
Coconut 60% will give you organic dark chocolate, again with coconut cream and live bio cultures but this darker variety is softer than the Dark 72%, without the bitter edge, yet milder on the coconut than the Coconut Mylk. (500.8kcal/100g)
Moving onto the fruit flavoured bars, if you are looking for a good blueberry chocolate then you may just find it in the Acai & Blueberry Ombar. This chocolate bar is zingy, with a sherbet style of flavour coming through before the blueberries finish off the tasting notes.
An Ombar Strawberries and Cream, organic raw chocolate bar with coconut cream and bio live cultures is soft and mild. We were looking forward to this one and slightly disappointed because we would have preferred more strawberry to come through in the taste. Soft and mild, it is still a pleasant change and a satisfying light chocolate. (498.5kcal/100g)
Last but by no means least, the Lemon & Green Tea organic raw chocolate with lemon and matcha green tea. We were not sure what to expect from this as we have found that lemon in chocolate can be hard to pull-off. Mixing it with green tea is perfect but adding this to chocolate can be tricky but not for Ombar. This became the favourite of the flavours, with the Acia & Blueberry coming a close second. The Lemon & Green Tea bar is clean and fresh on taste, with the lemon coming through and the tea following. Fabulous! (499kcal/100g)
Every 35g bar contains enough to share or devour alone. All are certified Soil Association Organic and carry a vegan symbol - and they are also dairy free. Allergy advice warns that they may contain traces of nuts and soy.
If like us, when you pop out for chocolate you are becoming less inclined towards the slabs of butter and fat that are gracing the supermarket shelves, masquerading as chocolate, then we would strongly urge you to try this range - and search for a more pure form of chocolate to the mainstream brands.
Call us chocolate snobs if you please but after sampling the quality of brands, such as Ombar, a Mars Bar will never have the same appeal again.
For more information visit www.ombar.co.uk