As the name would suggest, at the core of each glossy Rogers’ Chocolate Covered Blueberry is a delicious dried blueberry. The berry is wrapped in chocolate, which is then wrapped in an outer layer of blue-tinted blueberry-flavoured chocolate. They’re a little larger than most of the chocolate-covered coffee beans I’ve tried — about the size of a marble.
The taste is sweet and creamy with blueberry bits in the outer layer, turning to a melts-in-your-mouth layer of rich milk chocolate in the middle. The berry itself is like a fresh raisin, a shrivelled up (but not at all tough) blueberry that retains its fresh blueberry taste, and adds a touch of tartness to the overall character of the chocolate. For blueberry fans with a thing for chocolate, it’s scrumb-diddly-umptious.
So, if $7.99 for a 120-gram box is too rich for your blood, what to make of the bin full of generic chocolate-covered blueberries at Bulk Barn for $2.18 per 100 grams?
That’s a lot cheaper, yes, but the Bulk Barn berries aren’t nearly as good. Each piece is larger, but the chocolate quality isn’t up to Rogers’ standards. The coloured outer layer tastes of dusty, berryless drugstore chocolate, then turns to a sweet (but acceptable) milk chocolate. At the centre, the berry is a mostly tasteless dried fleck of fruit, an excuse to wrap chocolate around something. In short, for a blueberry chocolate, the Bulk Barn version doesn’t have all that much blueberry to it.
RATINGS AND DETAILS
Cost: $7.99 for a 120-gram box at Sunterra Market in Edmonton.
Value for cash money: OK. It’s a fancy chocolate product. If you want a cheaper take, try the so-so Bulk Barn version.
Availability: Easy to find in B.C., but harder elsewhere. They distribute to various shops across Canada, so check the Where to Buy page on their website.
Nutrition?: Eek. How does 200 calories per 40 grams sound? That works out to 600 calories per box. I counted 39 berries in the box, so that’s a bit more than 15 calories per berry. But what are the chances you’ll stop at one? At 8 grams of saturated fat per 40 grams (40 per cent of the daily value recommended, says the nutrition facts pane), it’s best to split a box over a week or more.
The verdict: The freshness and intensity of the blueberry flavour is unreal. Not cheap, and certainly not health food, but totally worth it.
I think it’s a bit odd that the chocolate is blue. Must be a colored white chocolate I’m guessing? Regardless, sounds like a good combo – chocolate & blueberries.
I think the very outer layer is made of something like white chocolate tinted with blue colouring, but the middle layer is all glorious milk chocolate with added blueberry pieces. It’s really nice. 🙂