There seems to be a trend going on recently with chocolate bars combined with sweets. Cadbury were at the forefront with Marvellous Creations Jelly Popping Candy, but smaller companies have gotten in on the act too - see my review here of the recent Fizzy Bubblegum Bottles Bar.
What I didn't expect was for Lindt to produce a bar that tasted of sweets, but somehow that's how this "Cherry Intense" from their Excellence Range ended up.
Peeling back the foil revealed a typically glossy and clean looking bar with the Lindt logo on each piece. It had a vague smell of cherry drops...
The chocolate is a lower end 48% cocoa solids, meaning not truly dark - just semisweet. It contains almond slivers as well as cherry pieces, which are made up of pineapple fiber as well as cherry.
Taste-wise the chocolate was very nice - rich and sweet as you would expect from a 48% cocoa chocolate. It was a bit too sweet in fact and I think a richer chocolate might have worked better with the cherry. Taste-wise the cherry pieces made me think of cherry drops and I really felt like I was eating a chocolate bar with sweets in. It was quite odd to say the least, but strangely moreish. This isn't the sort of thing you would expect from a Lindt chocolate bar and I think they missed a trick by not marketing it differently, considering the recent trend for sweets combined with chocolate!
Overall, this is an interesting bar but I'm not sure I'd buy it regularly. I love cherries but I much prefer the sour variety with darker chocolate. If cherry drops with semisweet chocolate sounds like your thing...then you might want to give this a try.
RATING: 7 out of 10.
Price: £1.85 at Sainsbury's (currently on offer 3 for 2)
Suitable for vegetarians?: Not stated.
Allergy Information: Contains nuts, milk, soya.
Nutrition (per 100g): 32g Fat, 49g Carbs, 42g Sugar.
