Merci Chocolate

"merci offers a thoughtful collection of rich, European chocolates made from the finest ingredients available. Known as Europe’s famous gift-giving chocolate, merci offers something for everyone and is sure to be warmly received."

You can probably guess how I discovered merci.

Indeed, "Europe's famous gift-giving chocolate" was given as a gift to a co-worker, who immediately ditched the box, providing me plenty of content for a chocolate review!  I wouldn't exactly consider these premium chocolates, as it turns out you can buy this box in Walmart or Target in the US too, but, hey, content for you that is *quite* accessible!  (Our box was actually from Germany ... I think?)

merci Finest Selection Box.

"Each slim, stylish box of merci Finest Assortment of European Chocolates contains eight unique, individually wrapped flavors, including Milk Chocolate, Coffee and Cream, Hazelnut-Almond, Hazelnut-Creme, Marzipan, Dark Cream, Dark Mousse, and Praline-Creme."

Our box was the "Finest Selection", a mix of different milk, dark, and white pieces, all bar shaped.  Merci also makes a mousse and a milk & creamy assortment, each with only 4 flavors.

Guide.

The box came with a handy guide on the back, which was nice, since our box really did seem to be from Germany, and the pieces were labelled in several languages.

Individual Wrapping.

Each piece was individually wrapped, thin long-ish bars, kinda like the shape of a single Kit Kat piece.

They were labelled in multiple languages - I could at least find French, German, and English on them.

Praline-Creme: Inside.

"Luscious milk chocolate with a smooth chocolate praline center."

I started with a milk chocolate selection, never my favorite type of chocolate, but, I was drawn in by the "Praline-Creme".

As I kinda feared, the chocolate was very mediocre boring milk chocolate, smooth enough, but, nothing special.

The filling though?  Really strange.  I didn't really think of it as praline, nor as "creme", it was more just like a gritty paste.  Meh.

**.

Hazelnut Almond.

"Delicate pieces of hazelnuts and almonds in smooth milk chocolate."

The next was not much better.

The texture of the nuts was nice, but the milk chocolate very mediocre, and the nuts seemed bitter.

**+.

Hazelnut Creme.

"Milk chocolate filled with a smooth, creamy hazelnut cream."

The hazelnut creme?  Alsono better.

Same mediocre milk chocolate, same strange cream filling.  **.

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Dark Mousse.

"Fluffy chocolate mousse wrapped in rich dark chocolate."

So I went for the next best sounding one: Dark Mousse!  I prefer dark chocolate, and, um, yes to mousse?

Like the Praline-Creme, it was a filled bar.  The dark chocolate was ... barely dark chocolate.  It was very sweet, creamy, and smooth, not really what I think of as dark chocolate at all.  For those of you who think Hershey "Special Dark" is dark chocolate, then this is for you.

The dark chocolate was also just a very thin layer, the inside filling was the majority of the bar, a milk chocolate "mousse", again, just more sweet filling.  Not interesting in any way.

**.