Trader Joe’s Triple Tiered Chocolates

Nice looking box, right?

Like a lake effect blizzard, the holiday season has descended on Trader Joe’s  – only instead of snow, we find ourselves mired in drifts of seasonal holiday offerings. From artisanal mustard sets, to tea samplers to the return of Pink Himalyan Truffle Salt, the shelves are again overflowing with slightly over-priced, niche items in attractive packaging. Frankly, I love it. Trader Joe’s holiday gifts are the second most jolly time of the year for a Trader Joe’s food review blogger – second only, of course, to the annual Pumpkin Madness.

Our impulse buy today is Trader Joe’s Triple Tiered Chocolates. This is one of those ideas that’s so stupid it’s brilliant or, possibly, vice-versa. I’m not sure why I haven’t seen anything like this anywhere else before, because the idea has been sitting in plain sight for decades.  Simply put, TJ has taken slice of white chocolate, a slice of milk chocolate, and a slice of dark chocolate and stacked them all together into one chimeric, hybrid chocolate treat.

There are two things going on here with this new chocolate, and I’ll start with the most important one. This is unmistakably a gift item first, and a chocolate treat second. The difference is sometimes subtle, but basically comes down to the packaging. From the box design, to the font, to the presentation of the chocolates themselves, Trader Joe’s Triple Tiered Chocolates have been designed to look good first and taste good second.

Chocolate is a very safe niche in the holiday gift giving world, and this product fills it expertly. Just look at the box, for instance. Who packages seven chocolates in a box only 3 inches wide and 18 inches long? Someone who’s trying to make an impact with fancy packaging, that’s who. Hand this out to a co-worker / in-law / mail carrier and you’re going to get a little an “Aww” on the box alone . No question – it makes an impact.

Fancy chocolates in their own little rooms.

But once we actually get the box open, how do the chocolates themselves stand up? Well, for one, they’re chocolate. As we’ve talked about before there’s not really any such thing as “bad” chocolate. Having any chocolate is a preferable existence to having no chocolate, and this is by no means a bad chocolate – although Trader Joe’s makes things tricky by combining the three different types together.

While there are certainly plenty of people who define themselves as “chocolate lovers”, these people generally break along the dark chocolate / milk chocolate line. Combine those two into one chocolate, and then add a layer of the always divisive white chocolate, and you have a confection that’s going to simultaneously delight and disappoint people.

You could bring up the argument here that Trader Joe’s probably didn’t need to bring in white chocolate at all. After all, white chocolate isn’t even technically a chocolate, but a sugar-and-fat-derived chocolate wannabe. Considering that a simple milk chocolate / dark chocolate blend would be sure to sell just as many boxes, if not more boxes, than one that also includes white chocolate, I makes you think that maybe the white chocolate is just there to be visually pleasing.

While I’m sure that’s true to some extent, the white chocolate here actually elevates Trader Joe’s Triple Tiered Chocolates to a strange new level. Never, before taking a bite of this stuff, have I stuck these three very different types of chocolate into my mouth at the same time. The result is something I wasn’t expecting – the flavors melt into one another in a complex interplay. The waxy, sugary taste of the white chocolate, normally cloying, is ameliorated by the flow of the sweet milk chocolate and bitter dark. The result is an intriguing storm of cocoa and sugar, teasing your taste buds this way and that. Certainly enjoyable to savor as it melts upon the tongue.

Unfortunately the chocolates are too big to pop into your mouth all at once. Instead, you have to bite through the three, firm, thick layers – a surprisingly difficult feat. Even after you manage it, the chocolate layers have a tendency to come apart under the pressure, leaving you a potential mess in your fingers.

All in all, I’m satisfied with the purchase. It makes an interesting gift, but also manages to stand on it’s own as an intriguing, if not overwhelming, chocolate confection.

The Breakdown

Would I Recommend It: Sure, this could make a nice Christmas gift.

Would I Buy It Again: Not for myself, maybe for others.

Final Synopsis: A handful of novelty chocolates in fancy packaging.