Tasting A Maca Chocolate Bar

Because I don't just talk about games and music but also other things that cross my mind, I'm going to talk about a chocolate bar that I ate today, the Maca Chocolate from Vega (a Canadian nutritional company).

Totally not shilling on this, I was given a sample bar after my mother was at a health foods show in D.C. this past weekend.

According to Wikipedia maca is:

In Peru, maca is prepared and consumed in several ways, although traditionally it is always cooked. The freshly harvested hypocotyl can be roasted in a pit (called huatia), and this is considered a delicacy. Fresh roots are usually available only in the vicinity of the growers. The root can also be mashed and boiled to produce a sweet, thick liquid, dried and mixed with milk to form a porridge or with other vegetables or grains to produce a flour that can be used in baking. If fermented, a weak beer called chicha de maca can be produced. In 2010 a US based brewery called Andean Brewing Company, became the first company to produce and commercialize beer made from Maca under the brand KUKA Beer. The leaves can also be prepared raw in salads or cooked much like Lepidium sativum and Lepidium campestre, to which it is genetically closely related.

A lot of that makes no sense to me as a layman, but it is still interesting. Allegedly a energizer and revitalizer, it was used by Incan warriors before going into battle. It also was purported to have "male enhancement" properties, but anyone who watches any of the food travel shows on television will see similar claims for many foods around the world. This is, however, and interesting historical tidbit that can be used in a number of ways by the resourceful and geeky.

I wasn't that impressed by the consistency of the bar. I found it a bit too hard, and I like more suppleness in my chocolate. It was also a bit more bitter than I like in a dark chocolate. The taste was comparable to the Vosges Creole Bar, which I felt was made entirely too bitter by the inclusion of the chicory. I didn't really notice any energizing effects of the bar. Would I track this down and buy one on my own? Probably not. I feel that I can get better chocolates with a comparable cocoa percentages that have a better taste and feel. However, if you're looking for some interesting verisimilitude for warriors in a historic setting you now have some starting research points.