Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Almond Butter Cups

Thank you Trader Joe's for not making us wait long for this. I only wonder why it didn't come sooner. Yes, for those of us who can't get enough of dark chocolate, this is the next best thing since sliced bread, says the Trader Joe's Instagram world (a burgeoning place for Trader Joe's-based community and covetousness :P). 

It comes in a smaller 8 oz. package compared to its peanut butter counterpart (which gives you double the amount for around the same-ish price). Is this an effort to save on packaging, especially in light of the public announcement they made on their podcast to decrease the amount of plastic/packaging used in their products by 2020? Or is it that almond butter costs more and they can't make as much product while keeping the cost low? I don't know. Beats me.

Make no mistake - this is a treat. Probably not worse than a lot of treats out there but for that segment of the super healthy population (of which I am definitely not a member!!), 15g of added sugars is gasp. A lot. Whatever man.

 The size is consistent with the now-discontinued speculoos-filled dark chocolate cups. Love the gold foil. Makes it look bougie.

1) Let me start by saying that this is a good product. Is it possible to dislike anything robed in dark chocolate? Of course it's possible - I ain't eating a dark chocolate-covered onion. But pretty much everything TJ's comes out with that has been coated in dark chocolate has been delicious.

2) That said, I expected this product to knock it out of the park. Like blow off all our socks, given that on paper this has all the components for a 10/10 perfect product. But it kinda misses the perfection mark for me.

3) Unlike the other iterations of dark chocolate nut butter cups, this filling doesn't really have a distinctive almond butter taste. It doesn't taste very much like the almond butter you get scooping it straight out of the jar. My guess is that the almonds have been blended with that "white confectionary coating" (with palm oil, sugar, etc.) to give it a thicker taste. Not a bad thing - texturally it tastes closer to the peanut butter filling inside of a regular Reeses. It just doesn't have that strong of an almond butter taste.

4) Even the almond butter were a little bit more "real," which is not really necessary to be delicious, the dark chocolate overpowers the almond butter flavor. Almond butter does not have as strong of a flavor as peanut butter, so while I love dark chocolate, it might not have been the best flavor pairing.

5) The main problem I have with this product is the inconsistent ratio of dark chocolate to almond butter filling from cup to cup. In the first picture above, the filling looks reasonable compared to the amount of chocolate in that particular candy. In the second picture, however, you can see that the layer of dark chocolate is clearly much thicker than the almond butter, which means you taste a lot more of a bittersweet chocolate that inevitably overpowers a weak almond butter.

6) Let me reiterate that this is a good - great product. But kind of a letdown if I'm upholding rigorous standards that TJ's has already established for itself. Of course, that will not stop me from eating these. They are delicious....but just mildly disappointing that with perfection within reach it fell just a bit short. $3.99 for 8 oz is still reasonably priced compared to the next comparable supermarket alternative.

TL;DR: Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Almond Butter Cups. Wobbly landing with that inconsistent dark chocolate to almond butter ratio. But most of you probably won't care as much. ;P 8 out of 10. Mantou Joe repurchase? Probably. They're good.