HI I LIKE THIS CHOCOLATE IT HAS GROUND UP ESPRESSO BEANS IN IT, IT IS REALLY GOOD, REALLY REALLY.  

*cough*

Sorry, it's just that every time I eat one of the little squares of chocolate, I get KIND OF excited.  Is it the caffeine?  I'm not sure how much caffeine is in it.  Some, surely, since it contains (as mentioned) ground espresso beans.

This bar, "the tiger bar," is my favorite Endangered Species Chocolate so far.  And not just because tigers are kewl.  (The tiger facts inside the wrapper mention that the markings on a tiger's face are unique, like human fingerprints.  Which I already knew, because I have seen every nature documentary ever made.)  Each pillow-shaped square has a semi-matte finish, and is stamped with the Endangered Species Chocolate symbol of a leafy branch.

The first thing I noticed when I unwrapped the bar was the smell.  My god, the smell!  I really can't articulate my feelings about the smell of this particular chocolate bar, except to describe them as "unseemly."  

This bar has the clean, dark smell of Baker's chocolate - the smell that lured you into taking a nibble, when you were a kid.  (And wasn't THAT a terrible surprise?)  And the alluring scent of a coffee bean, right after you've snapped it in half.  This is NOT the smell of fresh-ground coffee, which is different, and more friendly.

I have to admit, part of the reason why I haven't finished this bar is that once I've eaten it, there won't be anything left for me to smell.  I've basically been huffing this chocolate bar all day long. I'm telling you; it smells really, really good.

Inside you find a dark chocolate with a good snap and a creamy finish.  The texture of the chocolate is nicely set off by the crunch of the bits of espresso bean.  The grit of espresso beans is delicious in the way that no other grit can be.  

I've never had a dark chocolate with espresso beans in it.  Why?  This is seriously one of the best things ever.  Better even than chocolate-covered espresso beans, which always manage to be insipid chocolate around too much espresso bean.  I mean, they're good, don't get me wrong, but you're not always in the mood to eat an entire espresso bean at once.  Crunch crunch.

Ethically, of course, Endangered Species Chocolate is one of your best bets.  They not only use 100% Fair Trade cocoa beans, they also donate 10% of their net profits to non-profit organizations that make the world better.  And I recently learned that they originally used palm oil in their bars, but switched to cocoa butter because of the ecological devastation being wrought by the palm oil industry.

Endangered Species Chocolate comes in two varieties: All Natural and Organic.  The store I buy them at only ever seems to carry the All Natural.  But so be it.  This is a 72% cocoa bar, with only six ingredients: chocolate liquor, unbleached water-filtered beet sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla, and roasted coffee.  It's therefore gluten free, and suitable for both vegetarians and vegans.