{"id":12120,"date":"2019-04-18T18:44:28","date_gmt":"2019-04-19T01:44:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/?p=12120"},"modified":"2024-06-05T16:47:04","modified_gmt":"2024-06-05T23:47:04","slug":"rarer-than-rubies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/outsidechocolate\/rarer-than-rubies\/","title":{"rendered":"Rarer than rubies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barry Callebaut<\/a>, the Swiss chocolate manufacturer, announced a fourth type of chocolate in fall 2017, Ruby, which they said was chocolate, but not white, milk, or dark. Instead, it\u2019s a naturally pink chocolate they spent 13 years developing from special cocoa beans grown in Africa and South America. If truly chocolate, it\u2019s the first new chocolate since Nestl\u00e9 introduced white chocolate about 80 years ago.<\/p>\n

Very exciting\/intriguing news to me until it was announced that the first product available would be Ruby KitKats in Japan in January 2018. As someone who writes a blog about artisan chocolate, this was disappointing. Although it might have been appropriate since Japanese KitKats are known for flavor innovations with over 300 flavors<\/a>, from the predictable (Matcha Green Tea, Wasabi) to the unusual (Sweet Potato, Soy Sauce) to the truly weird (Cough Drop?).<\/p>\n

\"Ruby
The first commercially available product made with ruby cacao was Ruby KitKat in Japan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Searching high & low<\/h2>\n

Instead of ordering Ruby KitKats from Japan, I wanted to try simple, straight-up ruby chocolate, so I waited as Ruby spread across Asia, and a spring 2018 roll-out in the UK was announced. In March 2018, Callebaut announced that Ruby would be made available to artisan chocolatiers in Belgium.<\/p>\n

What luck! I just happened to be going to Belgium in May 2018! But it turned out to just be hype;\u00a0ruby chocolate was nowhere to be found when I spent a day visiting Belgian chocolate shops<\/a>. In fact, I couldn\u2019t find ruby chocolate anywhere on our European travels<\/a> that May. Not even a single Ruby KitKat.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, there has been a lot of controversy about Ruby. Questions about whether it is truly unique enough to be considered a fourth chocolate, and even if it could be considered chocolate at all. Callebaut has been pretty mum about Ruby\u2019s details, so it\u2019s hard to know the truth. And they delayed Ruby\u2019s rollout in the US because the FDA told them they could not call it chocolate.<\/p>\n

\"Wild
Ruby Coffee Bite from Vosges Haut-Chocolat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

American sightings<\/h2>\n

As I understand it, Callebaut got a temporary permit in the fall for Ruby, and it was finally available in November 2018 in truffles from Chicago\u2019s\u00a0Vosges Haut-Chocolat<\/a>. We got a sample of their Wild Orphelia brand Ruby Caramel Mocha Coffee Bites recently, which I will get to later, but I still wanted to start with a plain piece of ruby chocolate to compare it to the other types of chocolate.<\/p>\n

\"Chocolove
Not ruby chocolate, but ruby cacao<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Enter Chocolove<\/a>. In January 2019, SFBA chocolatier NeoCocoa<\/a><\/strong> posted a pic on social media of Chocolove\u2019s Ruby Chocolate bar at the Fancy Food Show in SF. Finally! A ruby chocolate bar I could try. Chocolove is not local \u2014 they are based in Colorado \u2014 and not artisan chocolate makers, but they were making a simple ruby chocolate bar.<\/p>\n

So I ordered some from Chocolove, but never got an acknowledgement of my order. Weird, then I didn\u2019t get my bars, but I got charged for them on my credit card. A round of emails and phone calls with Chocolove revealed that my order and 3 other people\u2019s orders the same day had resulted in charges but no actual orders placed.\u00a0Ruby remained elusive.<\/p>\n

So I tried again. Finally, the second week of March 2019 \u2014 a whole year after I expected ruby chocolate to be widely available, my bars arrived.<\/p>\n

You say chocolate, I say cacao<\/h2>\n

When we opened the box, the first thing we noticed was that it is not labeled ruby chocolate, but ruby cacao.<\/em>\u00a0This is what I think they had to do to comply with the FDA, and I think it was a good call.<\/p>\n

Opening a bar, we noticed the color is not exactly pink as we expected, but more of a grayish, purplish pink, the result of it being its natural color,\u00a0not enhanced by coloring or additives. Cacaopod said that he had read that ruby chocolate is not suitable for baking because it turns gray when baked. So the pinkish color is not stable when exposed to extreme heat.<\/p>\n

\"Chocolove
That pink color is as accurate as your device\u2019s screen can project<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The bar had a smooth texture, similar to white chocolate, and to me, the taste brought back a memory from early childhood. When visiting our grandparents, my older siblings would take me to the corner store where we would get raspberry ice cream bars. As we ate the bars, a cut-out character would slowly be revealed on the hidden end of the bar\u2019s sticks. Although I can no longer remember what characters were hidden in the ice cream, Chocolove\u2019s ruby cacao bar\u00a0tastes just like I remember that melting raspberry ice cream tasting.<\/p>\n

Cacaopod said it didn\u2019t taste like raspberry, but more like a general berry and milk flavor, and not as bright as white chocolate. It did have a pronounced tang that lasted a long time. And a buttery aftertaste.<\/p>\n

While the taste was disappointing, it was reinforced by information on the wrapper. The wrapper said it was 34% cacao content, and the ingredients list started with sugar, cocoa butter, and milk, so it\u2019s definitely a white or milk chocolate type of bar. (Cocoa liquor is the 4th ingredient, followed by soy lecithin, citric acid, and vanilla.)<\/p>\n

We have standards<\/h2>\n

I would not call ruby cacao chocolate. Chocolate is a unique pleasure, even if it has lots of different overtones, undertones, textures, and aftertastes, depending on where the beans are from and how they are prepared. Some people say ruby chocolate is just unfermented chocolate because fermentation is what gives chocolate its characteristic flavor.<\/p>\n

Ruby cacao does not have any of that chocolate pleasure for me. We decided it should be called a confection, it\u2019s definitely a candy of some sort, just not a chocolate candy. AMMA\u2019s\u00a0Theobroma Grandiflorum Cupuassu 80% bar that we tried in Amsterdam last year<\/a>, which is made from a close relative of cacao, tasted more like chocolate than ruby cacao does.<\/p>\n

Its only plus, Cacaopod said is the berry flavor. Otherwise, it\u2019s a bit dull and heavy.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s in a name?<\/h2>\n

Since ruby cacao is a new thing, we decided to share it with a bunch of other people to get their reactions. Our first tasters found it extremely tangy. One will never try it again; the other said that while she agreed with us that it wasn\u2019t chocolate, she predicted she would eventually eat the whole bar.<\/p>\n

They also gave us a better word to describe the color of the bar: \u201cMauve.\u201d We were happy to find a new use for an old word. And it\u2019s certainly much more accurate than \u201cRuby.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where\u2019s the chocolate?<\/h2>\n

Our next group of tasters described the bars as shiny with a chocolate texture but too sweet, and tasting milky, lemony, and like flavored white chocolate or strawberry milk. They agreed with one person\u2019s statement that \u201cit melts like chocolate, but tastes like candy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m kinda missing the chocolate,\u201d said another person. \u201c[Ruby]\u00a0leaves you wanting something else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their verdict was that ruby cacao is not satisfying like chocolate, and they suggested that it needs something, like almonds, to improve the experience.<\/p>\n

\"Ruby
Ruby Cold Brew Coffee Bites are darker than solid ruby cacao bars, I assume due to the coffee caramel inside<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Be careful what you wish for<\/h2>\n

On that note, we tried a ruby cacao+ confection: Vosges\u2019 Ruby Caramel Mocha Chocolate Coffee Bites, part of their Wild Orphelia Cold Brew line of chocolate-covered coffee caramels. In fact, we tried the whole line of\u00a0bite-size squares from white to dark, but were not wowed. Thick chocolate shells surround sticky coffee-flavored caramel, but\u00a0<\/span>the coffee flavor was weak and reminded me of old-school coffee candy, and overall the line is too sweet.<\/p>\n

The ruby cacao added some tang and sweetness, but tang added to coffee was not a desirable taste combo, pushing it toward bitter and isn\u2019t one of the points of cold brew is so it\u2019s not bitter? If you are interested in the bites, I\u2019d suggest the white chocolate version, if you like sweetened coffee, or better yet, the Jet Black which covers the coffee caramel with a nice 70% chocolate.<\/p>\n

\"Ruby
Add some sparkles to the package, and I think you\u2019ve got the next trendy gift for the 10 and under set<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While we didn\u2019t share the Coffee Bites, we did continue to share the Chocolove bars to get reactions. These later groups of tasters were more favorable than our initial ones, and unless they were dark-chocolate-or-nothing types, tended to like it, describing the flavors as raspberry, strawberry, or white chocolate. But there was a sizable percentage of people who also said it was too sweet and didn\u2019t taste like chocolate.<\/p>\n

The only group that was reliably pro-Ruby were girls 10 and under. \u201cI love pink!\u201d was their starting position, and none of them had any criticism. No nuance in that crowd, \u201cI like it!\u201d and \u201cI love it\u201d were all the description I got in their reactions. I think I\u2019ve found Ruby\u2019s market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stalking the elusive ruby chocolate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":12640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,20,13,169],"tags":[734,1061,846,852,964,755],"class_list":["post-12120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-chocolate","category-chocolateroundtheworld","category-outsidechocolate","category-reviews","tag-barry-callebaut","tag-chocolove","tag-japan","tag-kitkat","tag-ruby-chocolate","tag-vosges"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12120"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43112,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12120\/revisions\/43112"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}