Sorry folks – you been duped. You read Candy Gurus reviews to learn about good candy, and it turns out we have no idea what we’re doing. I just read the “How to Taste Chocolate” cheat sheet from the TCHO chocolate makers, and it appears Jonny and I are idiots. Not the immature-occasionally-maudlin-with-dumdum-wry-wit idiots you’ve learned to love in inappropriate ways. Oh no. I mean the doesn’t-know-shit-about-candy-but-still-feels-the-need-to-opine-about-it idiots. The kind who write loads about chocolate but until this point didn’t know the difference between ‘ok’ chocolate and ‘sex isn’t nearly this good’ chocolate. The good news is, I’m now learned. Lucky you.

Turns out, to taste chocolate properly, you don’t actually bite it. You break it (and it’ll ‘snap’ if it’s good), and you let it sit on the tongue and melt away while you breathe it in. Let me tell you – it may sound a little fancy nancy to go that route but it works, at least for TCHO it does. And TCHO is the latest in super fine chocolate from the San Francisco (Go Giants/Go Niners) locals.

The SeriousMilk Chocolate “Classic” (blue package) with overtones of Caramel is super good. Some of the best milk chocolate I’ve had. I don’t usually care for milk chocolate, instead preferring the dark arts. But this stuff is creamy and thick without being heavy, and the flavors are deep and not just dairy. Eating one square made me want to eat another square and it wasn’t really because I wanted to eat more sweets but rather I wanted to keep checking if I could taste deeper waves of flavor, man. How totally un-me. The chocolate was luscious but not filling, and it was sweet but didn’t hurt the teeth. Simply put: it was gourmet. I felt like I was eating dessert and not just snacking.

The dark chocolate is great too but it’s after 9pm and I don’t need to be up til 1am just cuz I’m trying to decipher its oaky undertones.

A few other flavors were sent to us — the one in the yellow package was “citrus,” which actually didn’t seem to limon-ey too me. The orange called itself “fruity” and, funnily, it wasn’t that fruity. But that’s good. They were named those things since they are the what’s underNEATH the chocolate. Like a fine wine may taste of cherries, for example. I think fruit and chocolate is overrated anyway, so I was fine with the ‘hints’ – no need for the bits.

Let’s be honest here: everything TCHO gave us was good if not downright really goshdarn dammit good. Just not sure how to eat this stuff. A piece here and there that you suck slowly and really feel, man? I can live with that every once in a while with my candy…but more often than not I think I just want a Snickers and call it a day.

Still – there’s no doubt this chocolate is awesome and if you’re a connoisseur of all things cocoa, then you should already know about TCHO.