It’s late summer! Well, it definitely felt like it just a few days ago. I even saw the duck rummage through our tiny collection of sunglasses in search of something that goes with a light summer bow!
This past summer sure was weird. In many ways. But it also was a lot of fun to go on vacation in our imagination (so cheap and comfy). In order to get some more of that vacation feel, we decided to add a few more senses to the mix and finally tested this year’s summer edition of Ritter Sport chocolates, called ‘Fernweh’, which roughly translates to ‘wanderlust’. 
The duck sure was happy to finally get to pose with the miniature box of summer edition chocolates. See, the first time we saw them at the local grocery store – as a big bag of mini bars (ha!) – it was still cold out. We looked at the packaging and thought that we might skip them because the pastel colors and the pictures of coconuts and mangoes made us think that all bars would be fruity and sport white chocolate. We are peculiar about chocolate and fruity chocolate is a thing we hardly ever like (though that’s mostly with darker varieties). Therefore we never had the urge to buy these vacation themed chocolates whenever we passed them at the store. Instead we fell in love with peanut butter Schogetten. But then summer came and we decided that once it was a bit colder (meaning: we wouldn’t have to worry about the chocolate melting away) we might actually give them a shot. So, we went out to buy a pack and it only took us four visits to different stores to get a hold of them (we even found a box of winter edition Ritter Sport during our search)! After our strange history with these chocolates, the duck and I couldn’t wait to try them and write another super subjective snack review:
Longing for the faraway
This is what the title of this summer chocolate mix literally translates to. And we did long for the faraway as we read each chocolate’s individual name for the first time to find out that, in fact, only one variety consisted of white chocolate and was somewhat fruity (white chocolate and fruit is something we tolerate much more than dark); the other two were (semi-)non-fruity filled milk chocolate bars. 
At that point we were even happier that we had eventually found a pack after having rejected these chocolates for so long. Okay, let’s finally get to testing these beauties which, because they are so different and you can buy them as bigger individual bars, we decided to rate individually.
Yogurt Honey Nut
This was the first variety that we tried and our first thought was that it tastes quite pleasant. As we ate some more of the chocolate we were surprised at how sweet it tastes. But this might also be due to the fact that we hadn’t eaten any pure chocolate in a while. The milky yogurt filling with little chopped hazelnut pieces and honey crisp goes well with the milk chocolate. In fact, if you ignore the nuts and the honey, this tastes a lot like yogurt filled Ritter Sport which is more sour than chocolate with regular milk filling. The crunchy pieces add a nice texture and are definitely not as easy to miss as the cracker parts in our beloved peanut butter Schogetten, which definitely is a ‘plus’. If it weren’t for the sweetness (maybe the sweetness of the honey didn’t need such a sweet yogurt filling), we’d be in love. Now we still like this chocolate, but not enough to round up the 3.5 ducks we want to give it. Still, it’s a good 3/5 ducks. We’ve definitely had a lot worse!
Coconut
The duck and I have a strange relationship with coconut. When we were younger we didn’t like coconut flavored food at all. But then we ate some vegan rice pudding with coconut milk and we fell in love. After that we decided to give coconut a chance so that now it depends on the snack, the day we’ve had and how desperate we are when it comes to our fondness of coconut candy (coconut milk we’ve learned to love almost unconditionally). When we tasted this chocolate for the first time we actually were surprised how much we liked it. When we tried more of it the next day we weren’t that impressed anymore. Well, let’s start with acknowledging that you get what is advertised: Coconut! That’s what the filling tastes like. However, the more we ate of it, the more we thought that it’s a tad too sweet and that weirdly made us think that the milk chocolate tastes a bit oily (which is a thing that we’ve never thought of regular Ritter Sport milk chocolate before). If we were in a ‘yay! Coconut!’ mood we’d be quite impressed by the filling, though, which is milky, but also contains coconut milk and coconut flakes that give it a pleasant texture. But the chocolate was a bit too much (altogether) for us, so that the duck and I decided to give it a weak 2 and a half ducks that we rounded down to 2/5 ducks in comparison with the other two flavors. On a different day this could have easily been a 3 or 4 ducks, though. 
White Mango Passion Fruit
This is the one we expected all three varieties to be like: white and fruity, which also means that we already expected this chocolate to be sweet and thus weren’t surprised when we tasted it. The milk filling has an intense mango and passion fruit flavor which goes well with the white chocolate in the duck and my opinion. Unlike the other two varieties’ the filling here is relatively smooth with only a little bit of texture through (fake) fruity pieces that add a pleasant sourness that works well with/against the overall sweetness of the chocolate. We ate this mini bar right out of the refrigerator and we think that this is how it should be enjoyed: cool and fruity and refreshing. We are a bit surprised but this might actually be our favorite out of the three because the combination of white chocolate and fruit just works and it definitely tastes the most like summer to us. This deserves 4/5 ducks because of its predictability and because we would actually eat this on a hot summer afternoon while going on a tropical trip in our imagination!
I wonder if the duck and I should have actively eaten more chocolate in preparation for this test? Maybe we wouldn’t have thought that these chocolates are too sweet. Well, considering that we expected these chocolates to be (relatively) bad (because how bad can chocolate really be?), or, rather not something we’d like, the duck and I are so happy that we decided to give them a try before they’d disappear from the store shelves everywhere to make room for the winter edition chocolate. Even though we didn’t love each variety, we actually didn’t hate any, either, definitely not as much as we thought we would when we saw them for the first time and then passed by them unimpressed for months.
Next time we won’t judge chocolates by their cover and, instead, always take a closer look. Had we done that with these we might have had at least a somewhat sweeter summer… Maybe we’ll try the winter ones – at the end of winter. We’ll see.
Have you ever had a surprise-nice-snack experience like that? What is your favorite kind of chocolate?
Have a sweet weekend, everyone!
The Duck in... side 