This is not the first DMZ Chocolate treat I’ve tasted. A quick recap, the DMZ refers to the zone between North and South Korea where the beans are actually grown. It’s a contentious place politically, but apparently the farming is very good there, particularly for beans and rice. My assumption is that the chocolate is imported, particularly since Korea doesn’t have the climate to grow cocoa. While I’m a little off about the fact that the word “chocolate” is the main word on the package, it kind of makes sense from a marketing standpoint. After all, you probably wouldn’t buy a bag of DMZ beans as a sweet treat.

As I mentioned before, this is not the first DMZ Chocolate treat I’ve tasted, and of all of the versions of this treat, I would say that this one is the most bean forward. It’s also the only one I’ve tried that features milk chocolate. The other two featured white and some kind of orange coloured chocolate which I assume is white with orange colouring. I was actually surprised that they went with white chocolate in the past, but after tasting these I might know why. While these are certainly tasty, the chocolate is pretty lost. My guess is that there’s two reasons for this.

First of all I think that the black bean is just too strong a flavour with the amount of chocolate they put on these. It’s a bigger bean and a much stronger flavoured bean. Secondly, I suspect that the earthy flavour of the bean matches up a bit with the biter chocolate. Not that this was a bitter chocolate, but it’s a little more bitter than white chocolate. In some ways the bean and chocolate blended so well together that you actually lose the chocolate a bit. The white chocolate provides a nice balance to the beans, but this one might resemble the bean (flavour wise) a bit too much.

This might be the rare occasion in my life when I might suggest going with a white chocolate over a milk chocolate (I know I’m shocked too) version of a treat. I think the creaminess of the white chocolate gives a nice contrast to the earthiness of the bean. Having said that, the bean is still very tasty, and while I couldn’t eat a whole bag of these in one sitting, I did enjoy what I ate.