Côte d'Or Speculoos Lait
Here we have the Cote d'Or Speculoos Lait, a milk chocolate bar with speculoos biscuit pieces. Côte d'Or is a Kraft-owned brand popular in Belgium. I believe they used to sell some of their bars in UK supermarkets, but they disappeared after a while. Nowadays they pop up randomly in discount stores.
This is one such bar I found in a discount store. They were selling them at 5 for a pound, which immediately made me suspicious. These days you're lucky if you can get three bars for a pound, so I knew something was up. I decided to buy just the one bar, which cost me 20p.
My suspicions were confirmed when I opened the wrapper - I was greeted by an awful musty smell with a hint of cinnamon. Usually I like cinnamon flavoured things, but this bar was rather unpleasant. There was a vague crunch from the speculoos biscuits, but they mostly tasted stale and musty. I couldn't taste the chocolate because the stale cinnamon taste overpowered the whole bar. Upon examining the wrapper I found it was close to the sell-by date, which I suppose should teach me not to buy from discount stores. Still, if a product is good, you'd think it would taste nice even if it's nearly out of date, right?
I'm not sure whether to blame the sell-by date for disliking this or just assume it was a bad bar of chocolate.
Have you tried this bar before? If so what did you think?
I had no idea about this format, I only knew about the 200g bar (photo). I tried that one in early 2010 and I remember I quite enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteI've had a similarly bad experience with Cote d'Or Oraia. They were selling a pack of two boxes really cheap so I went for it (I would have bought just one, but they weren't selling them individually as well :( )... but I was really disappointed with the chocolates. They had obviously suffered a lot from temperature variations and just tasted bad.
I've never been a massive fan of Cote D'Or chocolate but 20p is a bargain! They charge 80p for a Bounty at my work!
ReplyDeleteConsidering how bad this bar tasted I think I'd rather have the Bounty, even if it costs more :)
DeleteI know I am late for this review but I myself bought a few cote d'or bars off of a French food site as I am located in Canada and this brand is not sold here. The first bar I opened was a salted sable cookie bar and it smelled musty like you mentioned in your review and it tasted like the musty smell so I went and opened the second bar which was the same as you reviewed the speculoos bar and it smelled of the same musty smell and tasted like an old spice cupboard and then on to the third bar it was salted caramelized almond and bam I am hit the third time with this musty smell and musty taste and just to be sure I check the expiry and they don't expire far into this year 2014 so I am so confused and searched the web and came across your review, I have been to your site for reviews on Cadbury bars and I bought them based on your reviews which turned out great I only wish I had searched cote d'or on your site first. Is this normal for cote d'or to have a musty taste and smell? they are so bad I can not eat them. I would almost be tempted to reorder and send them to you because they taste and smell so bizarre and I could get your opinion. The musty taste you describe is a perfect description, I couldn't really put my finger on it before but that's a good way to describe the taste, is it possible the oils or animal fats went rancid in the bars before there expiry dates? Sorry for the long post but I thought you would be a good person to ask and since you tasted the same bar I thought you could let me know your opinion.
ReplyDeleteThanks a bunch
-Ashley
Hi Ashley, wow, it's been ages since I reviewed this bar but thanks for your comment! Hmm I have no idea what causes the musty smell/taste in these chocolates but my guess is that it's the vegetable fat going rancid or seperating from the other ingredients during transport. Perhaps the heat damages the fat and causes oxidation. I would recommend avoiding Cote Dor bars in future, there's much better chocolates out there! Hope this helps :)
DeleteWow thank you for the reply I really appreciate it! I am glad I came and asked because what you said makes perfect sense, I was just shocked because they all smelled and tasted of the musty smell you described and your response was informative so you solved my mystery! I love your blog and I am glad to know you are so nice and friendly and you respond to you readers. Again the response and information you shared was greatly appreciated keep up the great reviews and wonderful site! =)
ReplyDeleteTake care
-Ashley W
Hello, thank you for sharing this. I was wondering myself if my taste buds were out of order but it seems from the comments on another post on reddit addressing this quality loss that the company was bought and that many have noticed the huge qualitative change. What used to be a chocolate that stood above any other by having reached some sort og magical balance is now confirmed crap that isn't even better than a regular cadburry milk chocolate bar but is still (now) unjustifiably expensive. I would'nt be surprised if it was another case of food trusts buying back the high quality independant competitor that manages to grab a decent market share while being a small actor. Such as nestle did to carte noir coffe biscuits a couple decades ago
ReplyDeleteAfter noticing the initial post date my previous comment about a change of ownership is probably something that came after 2014. I myself noticed this in spring 2023 while possibly not having any of their chocolates for a year or more
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