A few months ago, I wrote a blog post about the high cost of importing coffee to Germany due to the Kaffeesteuer.  That particular post was very popular.  Despite my assurances that I don’t really like most of the German brands of coffee I’ve tried, many readers tried to sway me to another brand.  I really don’t mind paying a little more to get my Peet’s.  I wrote that post for people like me, who are missing a certain brand of coffee from the States.

Well, on November 23 of this year, I decided to order more coffee.  It was shipped on November 26th and arrived today.  Bill and I were pleasantly surprised by how quickly our package got through customs.  I was very surprised when we got our coffee today.  Because this shipment was a bit more expensive than the last one, I was expecting more customs fees and taxes.  To my great surprise, the “zoll” was significantly less today– 28,58 as opposed to the over 40 euros we paid last time.  I think it’s because this time, the package came through Saarbrücken instead of Stuttgart.  It looked to me like we weren’t charged the 19% value added tax.

We probably won’t need more coffee until the spring, but it’s interesting to note that the taxes and fees can be different according to who processes the package.  I’m looking forward to trying the new flavors as well as my old favorites that I ordered this time.

Speaking of new flavors, Bill went to the Real today to pick up a few things.  He brought home a couple of vegan Ritter Sport bars for me to try.  Since I’ve been slacking on the blog lately, I thought I’d write a post about these new products.  The Ritter Sports we got today are pictured below.

Ritter Sport vegan dark chocolate.  The purple one includes hazelnuts and amaranth.  The green packaged one includes quinoa and almonds.

I don’t usually eat vegan stuff, especially when it comes to chocolate.  I like milk in my chocolate!  But for the sake of a blog post, I’ll give these a try…

First, the hazelnut and amaranth…

Notice the dark color…

And the amaranth and hazelnuts.

 

The dark chocolate, hazelnut, and amaranth variety is very tasty.  The chocolate is rich and semi-sweet, but not bitter.  The amaranth provides a nice crispy texture that plays nicely with the hazelnuts.  It doesn’t make me stop missing milk chocolate, but this is a very nice treat!  I don’t usually like hazelnuts that much, either!

Next, the almonds and quinoa…

Looks pretty similar to the other bar.  This ought to be interesting, since quinoa has kind of a bitter aftertaste to me.

Here goes…

 

Again, the chocolate is rich, smooth, and semi-sweet.  I prefer almonds to hazelnuts, so I like the satisfying crunch and toasty flavor of the nuts.  The quinoa seems to provide a crispy quality, but otherwise doesn’t seem to provide a lot of flavor.  Again, a nice treat.

I think I like the almonds and quinoa better than the hazelnuts and amaranth.  Both of these bars are nice for your discerning vegan friends.  I recommend them, but still prefer a plain old Alpine milk chocolate bar!  Look for these new chocolate bars at your favorite vendor.