Raw chocolate from iQ Chocolate

A few weeks ago I went to the Ideal Home Show in Glasgow and somehow, instead of walking out with bags of homeware, I brought home a bag full of chocolate. There's no hiding the fact that I'm a big chocolate fan, but with eating healthily I've been trying to limit myself to a few squares of high percentage dark chocolate per week. However this little beauty, brought to you by Scottish company iQ Superfood Chocolate goes one step further as it's raw chocolate.

Cocoa beans are actually jam packed full of nutrients, but the usual chocolate making process heats the beans to such high temperatures that any trace of nutrients is lost by the time it reaches our mouth. Raw chocolate uses a much gentler process meaning that all that potassium, magnesium, zinc and iron (who knew chocolate was so good for you, eh?) found in the beans can be absorbed by your body.

Not only this, but iQ Chocolate use rare cocoa beans from the Rio Negro Valley. Now I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on cocoa, but this chocolate is definitely the nicest I've ate (if we're taking Kinder Buenos out of the equation, anyway...) and it definitely tastes high quality, even compared to brands such as Green & Blacks.

I've tried the Plush Peppermint flavour which is like a fresher, mintier After Eight without the cream filling and Espresso Kick which definitely gave ma a kick and has become my favourite espresso chocolate to date - and I've tried a lot. You can tell the flavours added to the cocoa are fresh ingredients and not artificial flavourings. The espresso chocolate tastes almost as though you're eating actual coffee beans.

I'll definitely be picking up some more bars to try. At £2.99 they do seem a little expensive but just 1 block is enough to satisfy my super sweet tooth so I've been getting 4 servings from each bar. They're also only 197 calories for the entire bar too, so this is definitely a guilt-free treat!

Have you tried raw chocolate yet?