Dolfin Chocolat Au Lait au The Vert Sencha du Japon

For my brother-in-law's birthday, my sister ordered chocolate from Chocosphere, but since they offer flat rate shipping under for orders under $50, she asked me to order some things to get the total order closer to that level. Honestly, it was hard to limit myself! Don't be fooled by the 1997-esque web design - there is some quality chocolate to be ordered.

I had to try more Dolfin chocolate, so among other things, I ordered their Sencha (green tea) bar for myself and the Lavender bar for a friend of mine. That friend was kind enough to give me a bite of the Lavender bar - I never liked lavender before, but consider me converted! It was that good.


Though I prefer matcha, sencha is pretty good, too. It's made from dried tea leaves and it's the most common kind of green tea in Japan (and probably the kind most Americans drink, too). In this bar, the sencha aroma was delightfully grassy and bitter. The tea leaves broke up the smooth chocolate with a slightly gritty crunch.

The green tea melded perfectly with the milk chocolate, which was some of the best milk chocolate I've had the pleasure of tasting (my husband loved it, too). It was smooth, not overly sticky, and neither too milky nor too sweet. This is absolutely the best green tea bar I've ever had. Although it was sencha, I found that it had more of a matcha essence than plain green tea. The green tea and chocolate weren't competing for flavor dominance; they were just in perfect harmony and balance.

A+

Dolfin website

Tirol Matcha Soy Latte and Peach Pie

I am such a sucker for new flavors of Tirol, and I can't resist matcha anything, so purchasing these flavors from napaJapan was an easy decision. It's slowly getting warmer where I live, meaning the end of chocolate shipping season is in sight and I need to get all my orders in soon before I come home to a pile of melted KitKats!

Matcha Soy Latte sounds like it was made for me (I don't get along with lactose), although I'm certain it was made with milk. Peach Pie sounded more like something my sister would love, but since last year's Apple Pie Tirol was so well executed, it seemed worth a taste.


Even though I love actual peaches, peach-flavored candy and chocolate often doesn't agree with me. In Tirol's Peach Pie, the flavor was pretty good. The white chocolate felt cool to the tongue and had a mildly sweet flavor, but I was reminded a bit of artificial sweetener. There were chunks of peach gel and "crust" crumbles in the chocolate, and the piece pieces alone had a good, fairly authentic flavor. The crumbles added a crunch that reminded me of soft granola, but they didn't add much flavor. It was nothing like the peach pie I'm used to, but still a good, unique Tirol flavor. My husband really liked this one. B


If my heart made its own Tirol flavor, it would be Matcha Soy Latte. The chocolate was a bold, grassy green with a white stripe in the center, and it smelled like milky green tea. I was delighted to find the matcha flavor stronger than the average green tea chocolate. It was slightly bitter but well balanced with some sweetness. Inside the flavored white chocolate, there was a gummy center that added a fun texture and a mildly sweet flavor (perhaps this was supposed to represent soy milk). I really enjoyed the strong matcha flavor, but didn't get much of a sense of soy milk. It's possible that it pulled a bit more vanilla than normal, but I'm not sure. A

Japanese Snack Reviews also reviewed the Matcha Soy Latte Tirol.

Tirol website

NewTree Granola

After loving the NewTree Belgian Biscuit bar, I was excited to come across the NewTree Granola bar at my local Wal-Mart. It offered another unique combination of flavors and textures I had not yet tried: milk chocolate and granola with lime and green tea extract.

The cocoa percentage was on the low side at 31%, but NewTree bars boast lower amounts of sugar than comparable chocolate bars (without an artificial sweetener in sight, mind you). In addition, half of the bar was well under 200 calories, which seems like a very reasonable indulgence. The box also mentions higher fiber and antioxidants, which are nice to have, but in the end, it’s still a chocolate bar.


The bar smelled of rich cocoa and lime juice, and I could taste the lime immediately. The granola bits (more like single pieces of oatmeal scattered throughout the bar) had a subtle vanilla flavor and added a neat crunch, making the chocolate a bit drier than I expected. This worked well for me, because it seemed to cancel out some of the stickiness I often experience with milk chocolate.

The green tea was almost undetectable, but concentration rewarded me with a few hints of grassiness. The chocolate, lime, and granola combination reminded me of cereals I liked as a kid, and the sweetness level was just right. It didn’t blow me away like the flax seed bar, but it was still an innovative, enjoyable chocolate bar.

B+

NewTree website

Green Tea Cake

I just TJ-hoarded…again! That’s what one must do when one fears the demise or long absence of a product at Trader Joe’s. And the sad thing is that I hoarded without even knowing if the product was going to be good. Luckily the green tea cake mix I just found on the “New Items” end cap turned out to be good.

Always check the “New Items” end cap to see interesting new arrivals. (Like the dried hibiscus flowers that I’ve yet to use.) These items may make it into the regular rotation, or TJ’s may make it walk the plank.

My intuition tells me that this is not going to be a smashing hit with the general public, and will disappear when the initial lot is sold. Ppsh, the general public does not know what is good for me! I love green tea flavored anything. My survival instincts kicked in and I hoarded.

The mild green tea flavored cake would be excellent with ginger sour cream frosting. The cake looks greener than the picture on the box and the picture I took, so would be excellent for a funky cake.

Ice Cream Hoarding

You know what goes really well with those papaya-coconut cupcakes?

Green Tea ice cream!

I picked up 5 pints this weekend from Trader Joes. No, I’m not a pig. I’m just hoarding.

I once read that if you like something at Trader Joes, you better stock up on it because it may disappear.

Pishaw! That won’t happen to me.

Then, it did!

A few weeks after posting about my addiction to Lucky Country Aussie Red Licorice, it went missing from the shelves and still has not appeared.

The ready to eat udon noodles and frozen gorgonzola and pear pizza have been missing since winter, the bite size cheesecakes (great for parties) make an appearance about twice a year, the gummi candies and frozen vegetarian bean burritos have been missing for a few months, and the Kashi cereal I get was gone last week.

Gelato Classico’s Green Tea flavored gelato is my favorite. They also make a ginger flavored gelato that’s neck and neck in the favorite race. These two can go missing for months before I see it again. I hadn’t seen either flavor in a few months and was afraid it wasn’t coming back, so I grabbed all that was left when it appeared this weekend.

Hopefully, with a little control, those pints will get me most of the way through summer.