This is my first opportunity to review chocolate for Sleeping Hedgehog. I must remember to ask for these tasty assignments more often! I learned a couple of years ago to carry chocolate with me for those moments of intense hunger that in my case often lead to a headache if I don’t respond in a timely manner.
Fearless makes and sells bars of organic chocolate made with raw, unroasted cacao prepared at low temperatures to preserve its naturally-occurring nutrients, minerals and anti-oxidants. The bars are also free from refined sugar, dairy, soy, gluten and genetically modified ingredients—they are sweetened with radapura, unrefined whole cane sugar. The bars are packaged in recycled cardboard folders that appear to be printed in soy-based inks, with an inner package of lightweight foil bearing variations on the text: I will eat fearless chocolate, I will eat raw organic chocolate.
I received three different flavors of Fearless Chocolate. All are 70 percent cacao. In Super Seeds, hemp, chia and flax seeds lend an interesting crunchiness to the chocolate. The added ingredients in Sweet & Hot are hibiscus and ginger. I took a bite from this without reading the label, and immediately caught the snappy taste of the ginger—quite unexpected in a chocolate bar! I must confess that the ginger and chocolate flavors completely overpowered any suggestion of the hibiscus flowers. In Exploding Coconuts I could really taste the almost bitter intensity of the dark chocolate. The coconut made this one a bit chewy, which I found pleasant.
Two other flavors are also available, Green Tea Peppermint and Dark as Midnight. Someone else ate those, so I can’t tell you what they were like.
The bars weigh in at 2 ounces each and are scored so that they can be broken into smaller pieces. I often snack on chocolate while I’m driving. The pieces are easy enough to break off with one hand, although initially opening the package took more attention and effort than I could devote while on the move. Although a few hours in the hot sun will cause the chocolate to soften, these bars aren’t nearly as messy as many others I’ve tried.
As I was finishing this review, I noticed the elephant logo on the package. The website includes this text: Elephants are playfully compassionate forward-moving creatures, representing transcendence and triumph over adversity. We imagined Fearless as a toy elephant, a totem to remind ourselves that such seriousness should not be taken so seriously.
So where can one find this charming, delicious and healthful treat? The website offers the bars for sale as an assortment of five (for $28.45) or in boxes with eleven bars of the same flavor (for $59.30). For just under twenty dollars a month you can subscribe to the Eat Me Mail Express and receive goodies regularly from Fearless. You decide what works best for you!
Addendum
Very shortly after we posted the above review, I received an e-mail from Daniel Scott, the so-called Media Monster at Fearless Chocolate. He offered to send me another package of samples so I could try the two flavors that were not included in my initial review. We agreed to wait until the hot summer weather subsided to avoid a cross-country meltdown.
True to his word, at the end of August, Daniel sent a full assortment of the chocolate bars along with a sample Eat Me Express Mail. These arrived in a charming recycled paperboard box along with a few stickers and buttons displaying the elephant logo with a cartoon bubble saying “I am fearless.”
So I can now say even more about the offerings from Fearless Chocolate. The Matcha Green Tea Peppermint bar has a mild minty taste. I couldn’t quite taste the green tea in combination with the mint and the intense chocolate flavor. The Dark as Midnight bar is even more intense than the rest of the bars in this product line, just on the verge of (but not quite attaining) bitterness.
The Eat Me Express Mail for August was really interesting. That package included a Chocolate Sombrero Bar skillfully seasoned with organic chili, vanilla and cinnamon—these flavors were noticeable but in no way overbearing. Also included was a small waxed paper bag of Holy Molé Chocolate Chips, unsalted tortilla chips each dipped in a spicy dark chocolate with a definite chili bite (ancho chili powder sprinkled on while the chocolate was still setting up). They were delicious, and likely would have been even more awesome if they were served fresh. Shipping delicate goodies like this across the country just doesn’t serve them very well.
Fearless Chocolate Company offers tasty products with a great sense of humor!
An addendum, March 2016: Fearless Chocolate went out of business at the end of 2015. No word yet on what the chocolatier will be doing next.
