What a Treat (Lindt Swiss Tradition Mixed Assortment)

Member Name: Caradawn

Product:	Lindt Swiss Tradition Mixed Assortment
Date:	23/03/05 (169 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Taste, taste, taste

Disadvantages: A little sickly

I am rather fussy when it comes to chocolate. I don't like the cheap stuff that they aim at kids, it has to be Cadbury's or Galaxy. Nestle makes me feel ill, unless it's white, as in Milky bar (I often pinch bits of my kids'). However, one day I received a free sample of Lindt Lindor and it prompted me to try more interesting varietys. I actually tried a taster box from The Chocolate Tasting Club, which is a kind of mail order company. I'm not sorry to say that I decided not to take any more deliveries. It claimed to be for the true chocolate lover, which it seems I'm not, as there were only about two I even liked. Most of them had alcohol in and it wasn't in small quantities. I gave my daughters a white chocolate covered raison each thinking it was a safe choice, but the look on my older daughter's face told me it wasn't. When I tried one myself I probably had the same look on my face. The raisons turned out to have been soaked in rum for a few months. Funnily enough though the baby ate hers without batting an eyelid. So I finally had the sense to try Lindt again.

Lindt aren't particularly cheap chocolates and this particular box is around the £5 mark (£5.48 in Tesco). The Lindt Swiss Tradition box I got had an unusual contents measurement of 205g and contained 20 chocolates. There were ten varieties, two of each. Now the reason I’m mentioning this is because of the contents card. You know the one which tells you what each chocolate is? For some reason it had an eleventh chocolate on the list which wasn't in the box and it looked gorgeous, although no more so than the rest. I fact the one of the things that makes these chocolates so attractive is the way they look. It's hard to describe, but you'll know what I mean if you see them.

I love nutty chocolates so this box was right up my street. All but two of them contain nuts. So I was looking forward to starting them anyway, but nothing could prepare me for the taste when I tried the first one. It's hard to describe and all I can say is think melting, sweet, creamy and mouth watering. They probably sound sickly and they are. I couldn't eat many without starting to feel a little queasy. Having said that, they aren't sickly in the same way as say Thorntons, as they are smoother and tastier (if that makes any sense).

I won't name each one as from what I gather from reading other reviews, they change them over time. So six months from now the box could be completely different, but some particularly deserve a mention. They have one called Macchiato which is a coffee cream. Unfortunately this description gives the wrong impression. It is nothing like the coffee creams you used to get in Roses. I don't like the taste of coffee, but I love the smell of fresh roasted coffee. Macchiato tastes like that smell. It isn't strong and it isn't runny like you would expect a cream to be.

Caramelita is as the name suggests a caramel. It is, "caramel cream filling topped with creamy caramel and enrobed in dark chocolate". I'm not a big fan of dark chocolate, but none of these were as bitter as I usually find it and this one can only be described as caramel heaven! I have never tasted caramel anything like this before. You have to try it to believe it.

I mentioned these two not because they were particularly better than the others, but because I didn't expect to like them. Normally there is always something in a selection box that I don't like, but this time I couldn't find one that was even just okay. They were all amazing. However, there was a favourite for me and it was Mandoline: "crunchy roasted almond in a fine almond cream filling enrobed with milk and white chocolate". What it doesn't mention is that it also seems to have a wafer layer like Ferrero Rocher has. I say 'seems' because I neglected to bite it in half to see for certain; it just went in whole I'm afraid.

I know it's boring, but I have to say the packing deserves a mention. It just strikes me as having had some consideration gone into it. The paper padding is twice as thick as you would usually find in a selection box, so extra protection for the chocolates. Also there is a thin sheet of plastic directly over the chocolates so they don't directly touch the paper (nice and hygienic methinks).

For me these are the sorts of chocolates to be savoured. I just had to let them melt in my mouth for as long as possible because I didn't want the taste to go away. If there are any down sides to them then one would have to be the price; the old saying: you get what you pay for applies there though. The other one could be that they are a bit sickly. This could also be seen as an advantage though, because it could mean they last longer (if you can tear yourself away from them), so in theory you consume less in one sitting than you would normally. That is of course only theory, because in reality I still ate too many each time and made myself feel sick.

Summary: