Marks & Spencer Dark Chocolate with Grapefruit & Pink Peppercorns

Sometimes I really am a glutton for punishment when it comes to new chocolate bar flavours. I always want to try new things, even if they just sound wrong. That's what happened with this new bar that popped up in Marks and Spencer recently, a single origin Peru dark chocolate with 52% cocoa solids, containing pink peppercorns and flavoured with grapefruit oil. Neither of those two ingredients are ones I particularly like, but nevertheless I was intrigued and wanted to try it.

The "taste profile" made it sound very enticing indeed: "The ripe fruit and subtle acidity of the cocoa in this bar gradually merge with the heat of the pink peppercorns. A subtle citrus flavour is followed by rich cocoa, spiked with crunchy fragments of warming pink pepper". Yeah, whatever...

Opening the cardboard sleeve, the bar certainly looked the part, although there was a faint aroma of pepper that betrayed what lay beneath.

Yep, this chocolate tasted pretty weird! The peppercorns taste odd, and don't work with the chocolate, whilst the grapefruit oil gives it that sour tang that isn't particularly pleasant or refreshing, like orange or lemon would be. All in all, it's a bit of an odd bar and I don't know why M&S are messing around with nonsense like this when they could do something so much better. Maybe like putting their Nutty Surprise Easter Egg into bar form? You can have that idea on me M&S!

5 out of 10.