Home » Reviews » Chocolate Reviews » Pacari Chocolate: Review And Veganuary Giveaway
|

Pacari Chocolate: Review And Veganuary Giveaway

Pacari chocolate is a family owned premium organic chocolate brand. All of their products are vegan as well as innovative, ethical and delicious, so the perfect sweet treat for Veganuary. Read on to find out about this awesome chocolate along with some of the latest offerings. There’s also a chance for one lucky reader to win a chocolate bundle – one of each product featured here.

Pacari Chocolate Review & Giveaway

Veganuary Day 22

Veganuary continues apace and I’m still loving it. What a surprise that’s been. I’ve discovered lots of good things and a few not-so-good things, but most of all I’ve been enjoying a wider variety of foods than I normally eat and that’s despite not partaking in any eggs or dairy.

Less Sugar

I’m trying to cut down on my sugar consumption and so far this Veganuary, I’ve been doing quite well. Pacari chocolate is rich and dark and I find a little goes a long way. One of their super cute 10g mini bars is enough to satisfy both my chocolate and sugar cravings. I’ve been allowing myself one sweet treat a day and when it’s not been a hot chocolate or a peanut butter banana muffin, it’s been one of these bars or a few squares from the bigger 50g bars.

Aquafaba Macaroon Fail

Yesterday, I had an epic aquafaba fail. I thought I’d be clever and make some macaroons with a piece of pacari chocolate stuffed in the middle. This is the third time I’ve tried to make aquafaba meringue and until my macaroons went into the oven, I thought I was onto a winner this time.

But alas, my macaroons went as flat as a pancake. They merged into one big mass and stuck to the paper so I couldn’t get them off. I baked the second batch at a much lower temperature, but they did exactly the same thing. The bits I could scrape off tasted fantastic, but I don’t think it’s a recipe I can include here on Tin and Thyme.

Aquafaba Update

I finally managed to make meringues. I even have a recipe for it now on the blog, brown sugar aquafaba meringues.

Pacari Chocolate

Pacari chocolate is a firm favourite with us. Indeed, CT splashed out and bought me some coffee chocolate from them as a Veganuary treat. The fact that coffee chocolate is his favourite might have had something to do with it. As it happened I was also sent some of their chocolate to review last week. Happy days.

You’ll find some of their latest products featured below and I have one of each to offer up to you lovely lot as a special Veganuary giveaway. Good luck. If you can’t wait, you can buy Pacari chocolate from their online shop.

A variety of Pacari organic chocolate products.

What makes Pacari chocolate so special?

In Quechua, an Andean indigenous language, pacari means nature, which says a lot about this company and its ethos. It’s a premium organic chocolate brand based in Ecuador. The chocolate is also produced and packaged in Ecuador and it’s made from the cacao beans that are grown there. This makes it a rare tree to bar chocolate and it’s something I thoroughly approve of.

As well as being organic, all Pacari chocolate is vegan, kosher, gluten-free, soy-free, palm oil-free and is also ethically and sustainably produced. Wow! That’s pretty unusual in the chocolate world. So yes, this chocolate may seem expensive, but when you take all this into account, it’s very much worth it.

Most Pacari chocolate is made from Arriba Naciona, which are some of the best cacao beans available. No surprise then that they’ve won numerous awards. Products are innovative and the flavours interesting. I’m in love with the packaging, especially the beautifully coloured and artistic cacao bean which is featured on the inside wrappers.

I have written about Pacari and their chocolate bars extensively in my coffee chocolate chip cookies post. The cookies contain both their coffee and cardamom chocolates.

Drinking Cacao with Ginger

If time is pressing and you don’t want to make my gingerbread syrup, Pacari’s ginger drinking chocolate is for you. Real Ecuadorian Pacari chocolate is ground into powder to ensure it melts into your milk in super fast time. It’s 100% cacao and the only addition is ground ginger.

A cup of drinking cacao flavoured with ginger.

There’s no sugar at all. I’m really happy with this as I’m cutting back on my sugar intake and find it perfectly delicious without any sweetener. You can, of course, add sugar or your preferred sweetener to taste. You can also use the cacao powder to great effect in baking.

Chocolate Covered Banana

Pacari organic chocolate covered banana balls.

Once I started eating these organic chocolate covered banana pieces, there was no stopping me. They are totally scrumptious. Just as well they come in small 57g packs or I would have eaten far more than is good for me. It won a silver in last year’s Chocolate Awards.

50g Flavoured Bars

All Pacari’s flavoured chocolate bars are made with 60% cacao content. They are sweet enough without being sickly and the rich chocolate notes support the array of interesting flavours.

I’ve often found that passionfruit chocolate can be over played. It’s a flavour which I love and it makes the most fabulous passionfruit curd, but added to chocolates, it can taste very artificial. Of course, Pacari use the real fruit in their passion fruit chocolate bar and you can tell, it actually tastes of real passionfruit. It’s delicious and my new favourite flavour.

Pacari chocolate products.

The lemon verbena bar also tastes amazing. I adore lemon verbena. It has the scent and flavour of lemon sherbet. Lemon verbena is a plant native to South America. We’ve tried to grow it on a number of occasions, but we rarely manage to get it through the winter. Maybe it gets homesick. Now we have a conservatory, we’ll try again.

Meanwhile, I’m very happy eating this Pacari chocolate bar where the lemon verbena grew just where it should.

Mini Bars

I’m totally in love with Pacari’s super cute mini chocolate bars. They only weigh 10g, but it’s enough chocolate to savour and satisfy in one sitting. This bundle consists of a 70% cacao raw chocolate bar, a 70% cacao single region bar (Piura Quemazón) and a 60% cacao single region bar (Esmeraldas).

The Piura Quemazón is a limited edition chocolate made from an extremely rare bean from Piura in Peru. It’s a real treat for a chocolate connoisseur and needs to be savoured. It’s even won gold at the Chocolate Awards. The Esmeraldas bar has fruity and floral notes which make it ideal for those new to dark chocolate. It won bronze at the Chocolate Awards.

Pacari offer a range of raw chocolate bars. They were the first raw chocolates in the world to get biodynamic certification. I’ve tried a lot of raw chocolate in my time and this is one of the best. It has a really good snap to it and a similar mouth feel to standard chocolate. It also tastes very nice.

Keep in Touch

Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you try any of these Pacari chocolates I’d love to hear about it in the comments below or via social media. Do share photos on your preferred social media site and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.

For more delicious and nutritious recipes follow me on TwitterFacebook, Instagram, Flipboard or Pinterest. And don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to my weekly newsletter. Or why not join the conversation in our Healthy Vegetarian Whole Food Recipes Facebook Group?

If you’d like more chocolate reviews, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them.

Choclette x

Pacari Chocolate Giveaway

To celebrate Veganuary, Pacari Chocolate is offering one Tin and Thyme reader a chocolate bundle worth nearly £20. It consists of the following: 125g pack of drinking cacao with ginger, a 57g pack of chocolate covered bananas, two 50g bars (passionfruit and lemon verbena) and three 10g bars (70% Piura Quemaźon, 60% Esmeraldas & 70% raw chocolate).

To be in with a chance of winning, please fill in the Gleam widget below. You will need to leave a comment on this post, answering the question, which then gives you additional chances to enter if you so wish. Gleam will pick a winner at random from the entries received. If you are commenting anonymously, please give me some way of identifying you as I will be verifying the validity of entries. Any automated entries will be disqualified.

Pacari Chocolate Giveaway

This giveaway is only open to those with a UK postal address. Winners will need to respond within 5 days of being contacted. Failure to do this may result in another winner being picked.

Prizes are offered and provided by Pacari Chocolate and Tin and Thyme accepts no responsibility for the acts or defaults of said third party. Tin and Thyme reserves the right to cancel or amend the giveaway and these terms and conditions without notice.

Closing date is Friday 22 February 2019

Do take a look at the Tin and Thyme giveaways page to see if there’s anything else you’d like to enter.

I was sent some Pacari chocolate products to try. I was not expected to write a positive review and all opinions are, as always, my own. Thank you for supporting the brands and organisations that help to keep Tin and Thyme blithe and blogging.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

214 Comments

  1. The fact that they are vegan is a big draw for me having just celebrated my 4 year Veganiversary! They are also ethical so can enjoy the amazing flavours with no guilt at all. They also have less sugar which I love very much as people tell me i’m sweet enough. ♡Thanks for the chance♡

  2. The Passion Fruit sound nice never had this chocolate before or this flavour but sounds nice to me would love to try it.

  3. The cacao drinking chocolate sounds great and would be ideal for the dairy free members of the family, the other flavours mentioned sound intriguing and I would love to try them all

  4. I love chocolate and this has got such a cool name plus it’s ethically sourced and organic why on earth wouldn’t I want to try it?

  5. You made my mouth water with your description of the flavours – I want to try the lemon verbena one for myself

  6. I’m intrigued by Pacari’s vegan chocolate! As I’m trying to avoid dairy, I’d be keen to give this a try. And it’s sustainably produced. Sounds like guilt free indulgence to me!

  7. They’re vegan which is a great thing but the flavours are so lovely. Passion fruit and lemon verbena. What a treat.

  8. would love to try because they are vegan & gluten free so would suit my diet, also love the interesting flavours- fingers crossed!

  9. I love the unusual sounding flavours. I’m a big fan of darker chocolate, but you tend to be limited on the different flavours if you opt for a higher cocoa content.

  10. I’m a big lover of high percentage chocolate and looking at ways I can cut down my sugar/dairy intake so this chocolate seems perfect!

  11. They’re vegan, organic, gluten free and palm oil free thats good for the planet, also they sound incredibly tasty

  12. Having been told I’m border-line diabetic and need to tweak my diet, this would be a great way to get a chocolate hit.

  13. Being ethically sourced is a huge bonus for me, as I’m making the effort to buy more based on fair trade and environmental principles. It’d be great to try, to see if it’s something I’d consider adding to my permanent shopping list.

  14. I haven’t tried this brand yet, so am interested to see how they compare to other similar products on the market.

  15. I have had a look on the Pacari website and I like the fact the small scale farmers are fairly compensated for their products.

  16. This chocolate sounds good, I like that it is organic & has less sugar. I get a sugar crave in the evenings so it is great that there are small packets so you don’t end up eating the whole bar. The flavours are different from normal too ..

  17. It’s organic and vegan which is appealing I’m also on a weight loss plan and can have some chocolate .I lost 3 stone last year and had a little . Going for the last half stone now.

  18. Always looking for new vegan chocolate and these flavours sound delicious and love that they are organic as well. Partially want to try the passion fruit and lemon verbena bars.

  19. The unusual flavours sound really intriging, lemon verbena as an example. ALso the fact that it’s proper drinking chocolate ie solid, not powdered sugar.

  20. I’m trying to cut down on sugar so would like to try some of these. Also, chocolate triggers my migraines so I would like to see if it’s any different with these.

  21. I love the unusual flavours – love decent chocolate as then I don’t feel as guilty having a few squares, which I’d prefer to eat than more squares of a cheaper chocolate.

  22. I’d love to try the gorgeous flavours as I’m gluten free and it would be so good to know these little treats weren’t going to do me any harm!

  23. I like the fact that it is organically produced and the cocoa content is high but the sugar is low making it real chocolate rather than the artificial products we normally see in the shops these days.

  24. Always great to find something tasty that won’t break the calorie bank! The passion fruit and lemon verbena bars sound really good! Flavours you might see mixed on GBBO!

  25. Looking even at the images, that seems full of chocolate, my mouth is watering looking at it, it makes me want to try it

  26. The unusual flavours sound so interesting and the small pack sizes mean I wouldn’t feel guilty about eating the whole bar.
    We often have chocolate with whisky so this sounds ideal.

  27. Their varieties! It’s just about unheard of to see anything like the Chocolate Covered Banana that’s from such a high quality company, and some of their “normal” chocolate flavours are so different too. My mouth is watering!

  28. I would like to try it because the flavours sound amazing – and it is organic, vegan and glutenfree which is perfect for all our family.

  29. The story behind this chocolate and the way it’s made is very appealing in that I can enjoy a small amount of chocolate and feel good about it.

  30. It’s great to have a vegan range with adult flavours. I rarely buy chocolate from the supermarket because I hate scouring the ingredients for animal products, squinting at tiny writing (my eyes aren’t what they were!). It’s surprising how often honey or milk products are added.

  31. I love that it is vegan, I cant have milk but I love chocolate and so much chocolate contains it, so I love a good alternative!

  32. Really love how they are ethically sourced with Less sugar & being organic, the flavourings sound wonderful. It’s so hard to get quality great tasting chocolate these days.

  33. I have been lucky enough to have tried Pacari in South America and am delighted to find out that I can buy it and scoff it here at home. I can vouch for ALL the flavours. It’s just wonderful.

  34. I love chocolate but have not try this brand before. Sounds great. Less sugar, organic. Would love to try. Thank you for a great giveaway.x

  35. I love chocolate, but the use of palm oil in Cadbury’s and other big brands is something I feel strongly about. I have made a resolution that from now on I will only eat organic palm oil-free chocolate produced in an ethical manner.

  36. I turned vegan last year, so I’m always looking for new things to try and this chocolate sounds really good, I like the sound of the passionfruit bar.

  37. I’d like to try them because the flavours sound amazing and they are low sugar, air trade , non gmo and organic.

  38. Amazing sounding chocolates – fabulous flavours and all Vegan approved and ethically sourced. What’s not to love?!

  39. The flavours are unusual but you make them sound delicious. I’ve never seen or hear of passion fruit or lemon verbena chocolate bars.

  40. Anything that has won a gold award deserves a try surely! And especially when it is my favourite kind of chocolate – dark choc 🙂

  41. I love that it’s organic and fair trade. I am trying to concentrate more on where food comes from, even lovely treats like chocolate

  42. I love the sound of the ginger drinking chocolate. Hot chocolate has to be really good for me to enjoy it and this sounds perfect!

    1. The nice thing about this one, apart from the flavour and ethics, is that you can have it just as it is, or add as much or as little of your preferred sweetener as you like.

  43. I would like to try the chocolates as I think they are all cleverly flavoured and not the norm. The passionfruit and verbana sounds lush and that would be the first one that I devoured.

  44. we are always looking for new chocolate options as my daughter is intolerant with gluten and dairy, I also want to avoid palm oil due to the environmental impact particularly with regard to deforestation in Borneo- This looks like a great brand to try out

  45. I’m not eligible to enter your giveaway, just commenting.
    I have been a convert to ‘bean to bar’ chocolate for some time now. I don’t think you could eat more than a couple of squares at a time, it is so satisfying. I use 100% cacao when I make Brownies (your recipe as well) because they are so sweet anyway that you don’t need the extra sugar that ‘off the shelf’ chocolate would add.
    You are offering some lovely chocolate in your pack – those lovely flavours – to whoever is the lucky winner. It will change their chocolate eating habits forever. I’m more discerning about the chocolate that I eat now and my husband tells me I’ve turned into a bit of a ‘chocolate snob’!! :). Oh dear!!

    1. It’s just brilliant that we can get 100% cacao now. It was pretty much unheard of a few years ago. So glad you like the brownie recipe. Which one is it? I bet I didn’t use 100% cacao. But brownies are so sweet anyway, it sounds like the way to go.

      CT keeps telling me I’m a chocolate snob too 😀

  46. the most exciting range of chocolate products i have ever seen, i would be delighted to receive such a present, i may even share some with my husband! especially as i have seen your post on paring with whisky which is right up his street.

  47. I would love to try this to see if it lives up to my expectations and whether I really want to enjoy this on a regular basis (obvs I would taste it every day, but my weight would spiral, yea?!!!)

  48. The flavours are so different and unique that it would be a real treat to try them as they are special and i’m a big chocoholic.

    1. Hi Melanie, you just write your name in the form at the top where it asks what name you commented as then you write your answer in the comments section where you have asked where you put your 10 words.That’s where your 10 words or more should go. 🙂

  49. I love the complexities you get in single estate chocolates. I think we may be some of the final generations to enjoy such treasures as these.

  50. I want to reduce my sugar intake, but I don’t want to give up on chocolate. This may be a viable alternative.

    1. Vegan chocolate is just dark chocolate with no danger of dairy cross contamination that you get with lots of other dark chocolate brands. But this chocolate is extra special.

  51. would be interested to see what it tasted like as have been unimpressed by some big fancy brands with how bland some of them are.

  52. I adore chocolate but need to cut down on my sugar intake. I am bored of the usual overly sweet flavours you often get in milk chocolate but plain chocolate doesn’t seem to have many good flavours that can work with the bitterness and richness e.g. I love rose flavour but when paired with dark chocolate it seems to get lost. I’d also be interested in the small bars as realistically I only “need” a little bit of chocolate to satisfy the craving but faced with a larger bar I find it hard not to keep going back for just a bit more or breaking off a larger piece so I don’t have to go back to the fridge when I want more!

    1. Pacari Chocolate with rose won’t disappoint you, doesn’t get lost it is natural infusion of rose, you will love it, several medal at the International Chocolate awards for this bar. Also on the small size 10g bars options
      These are real good quality dark chocolates form 60% caca to 100% all made in Ecuador so much more wealth will remain in Ecuador.

  53. They’re vegan, organic, gluten free and palm oil free, which is good for the planet they also sound incredibly tasty, and from what you say, a little goes a long way, which is good for those of us who are watching our weight!

  54. I love that it is organic and vegan, and has some interesting flavours, I have never heard of passion fruit chocolate before but it sounds delicous!

  55. I don’t think I’ve ever tried Veganuary Chocolate before. The name is really cool and the flavours sound tasty So a huge Yes Please