barkthins chocolate almond sea salt featured
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BarkTHINS Snacking Chocolate: Dark Chocolate, Almond, and Sea Salt Review!

I’m craving it. I yearn to taste what’s so close in front of me. I’m in the grocery store, and in front of me is my greatest nemesis. I’m at my weakest point. So I grab the bag, run to the register and check out.

I have an embarrassing confession to make. I’m a gigantic fan of chocolate. I’m also keen on almonds. But when you put the 2 together, then you really see something magical happen.

BarkTHINS did exactly this.

But wait, there’s more. These aren’t just the typical chocolate treats, these are dark chocolate chunks!

Where can you find BarkTHINS?

You can generally find Bark Thin Chocolate Almonds at your local Costco stores. But if there’s not one near you, they sell these treats online at a bunch of retail stores as well as those retail stores online.

What type of packaging does BarkTHINS come in?

These BarkTHINS come in a very nice and durable plastic bag. These bags are resealable so that’s very considerate.

They even make a slit at the top left and right corners to tell you where to tear it open.

Bark Thins Snacking Chocolate (front bag) wp recipe image
Bark Thins Snacking Chocolate (front bag) wp recipe image

Now the barks themselves are not individually wrapped which is completely fine. The durability and the strength of the bag itself plus the sealing ability more than suffice in keeping the snacks nice and fresh.

One other thing I would like to add is that my bag is the 20oz version. These come in multiple size bags and the most popular seems to be a really small package. The 20oz bag is actually the big one.

What are the nutritional facts of BarkTHINS?

These are candy snacks and not at all meant to be in any sense healthy, nor is it a poor health choice either.

You got to enjoy what you eat right? BarkTHINS are one-of-a-kind chocolate that’s made with simple ingredients.

Bark Thins Snacking Chocolate (nutritional facts, ingredients)
Bark Thins Snacking Chocolate (nutritional facts, ingredients)

Each serving is about 1.1oz (31g). I measured that to be approximately 4 regular-sized pieces about 2in by 1in each. Eating this will give you:

  • 12g of fat
  • 25mg of sodium
  • 3g of protein
  • 11g of sugar
  • 15g of carbs

One serving size will give you a measly 160 calories. This isn’t bad considering how it’s just a simple and delicious treat.

The ingredients used to make this are honestly nothing out of the ordinary. The company literally meant it when they said, “simple ingredients made better.”

However, it does contain the obvious milk, soy, and almonds so if you happen to be allergic to any of those things, you might want to reconsider.

What is BarkTHINS made of?

Don’t believe what’s written on the bag? Want to see a close-up? Well, here you go.

Bark Thins Snacking Chocolate (spill out scattered close up)
Bark Thins Snacking Chocolate (spill out scattered close up)

As you can see, the insides or cross-sections of the chocolate barks are remarkably filled with almond bits.

One thing you won’t be able to see is the sea salt which is mixed into the dark chocolate mix as well. The salt isn’t fully dissolved so randomly at times, you’ll experience an immediate salty burst.

These are dark chocolate chunks, not regular milk chocolate. Dark chocolate is bitter, and this is no different.

The company also states that this tasty treat is part of the Non-GMO Project and that it’s also using Fair Trade Certified ingredients.

How big are BarkTHINS?

Let’s talk about the size and measurements of the chocolate barks in detail. Does it really look like what’s on the bag? Let’s see how big these things are when you take them out of the bag.

I have some pictures here with a ruler beside it to give you a general idea of how big these barks really are.

Bark Thins Snacking Chocolate (measured width)
Bark Thins Snacking Chocolate (measured width)

The barks drastically vary in size and shape which is likely due to the decision the company made to give it a more natural look. Rather than use a standard cookie-cutter mold to make each treat identical, they probably prepared it on a tray and took a hammer to it to break up all the pieces.

Roughly speaking, the barks are mostly rectangular shaped measured around 1 to 2 inches on each side.

You’re never guaranteed what size you’ll get if you blindly reach into the bag.

The next thing that’s really important is going to be how thick these pieces are.

Bark Thins Snacking Chocolate (measured height)
Bark Thins Snacking Chocolate (measured height)

Now, this is generally the same for all the pieces in the bag. I measured that every single bark is about a quarter of an inch thick or about 0.625cm.

That’s not bad. In fact, I’d argue that these are pretty thick chunks of dark chocolate. It’s funny how the company decided to name them BarkTHINS.

How do BarkTHINS look in your hand?

Take a look at how big they are at your fingertips. The point of this is to understand how big of a bite you have in front of you.

Bark Thins Snacking Chocolate (close up front)
Bark Thins Snacking Chocolate (close up front)

I want to stress it again that this is dark chocolate. It’s not regular brown like a Snickers candy bar brown. It’s also not the type of sweet you’ll find from a traditional candy bar like a solid Hershey’s bar.

It’s pretty clear that this candy snack has rough terrains.

But what about the back? Anything special back there?

Bark Thins Snacking Chocolate (close up back)
Bark Thins Snacking Chocolate (close up back)

Not really. There are some uniform patterns on the back that signal to me that instead of a long metal pan, perhaps they used some silicon or plastic textured pan to lay the melted chocolate over.

The way these chocolates were made intentionally shows no attention to detail and that’s okay. The natural look of imperfect pieces is the atmosphere it’s trying to accomplish here.

Overall, nothing special.

Do kids like BarkTHINS?

This is probably my most curious test. First of all, it’s dark chocolate, which means it’s bitter. Then, it’s also salted as well.

Bark Thins (son tries)
Bark Thins (son tries)

Unsurprisingly, my son didn’t like it too much. And he LOVES chocolate… as long as it’s really sweet like a Kit Kat or a Twix. He took one bite of the bark and said no more. He even asked for water. At least I won’t have to worry about leaving this bag out in the open. He won’t be sneaking into this bag and that’s a win-win for me.

But how did my daughter do?

Bark Thins (daughter bites in)
Bark Thins (daughter bites in)

Once again, the same as my son. She didn’t like it. She said it was too salty but I think she meant bitter. My kids don’t mind salt, but I’m certain they don’t like bitter. When the kids hear chocolate, they only think of milk chocolate.

I shouldn’t be too surprised by this.

I’ll take a subjective statement and say that this isn’t for your average kid… at least for ages 3 to 6.

What should I eat BarkTHINS with?

So what did I decide to eat these chocolate treats with?

Bark Thins Snacking Chocolate (with almonds, milk)
Bark Thins Snacking Chocolate (with almonds, milk)

A glass of milk. But if you are lactose intolerant, check out my full review on Planet Oat’s Oat milk extra creamy original. I think you’ll love it.

Yeah, I know this isn’t a cookie. But whenever I eat anything that even contains chocolate in it, I have a small glass of whole milk with it. It’s great! You should try it.

How long do BarkTHINS last?

I bought this from Costco on February 20, 2021, and the date on the bag states that it’s good until December 2021.

I assume that if you purchased this from the store, you’ll have a little less than a year of shelf life.

There’s no need to freeze or refrigerate it. Just leave the bag at regular room temperature, away from the sun, away from windows.

How would I rate BarkTHINS?

Okay, we all know the difference between milk chocolate and dark chocolate. Milk chocolate is usually sweet and dark chocolate is usually bitter.

However, what you don’t know about me is that I love both. I actually do enjoy the bitterness of dark chocolate. I’m also a coffee lover and I put a little sweet cream into my coffee. But overall, my coffees are more bitter than sweet. So that’s where I think my love for the bitterness comes from. Or maybe that’s my tolerance. Now I’ve tested my palette with some of the more bitter chocolates out there and I’m a wuss when it comes to those ultra bitter chocolates with a high percentage of pure cocoa. This isn’t it but it is bitter in every bite.

One thing that turned me off from these chocolate snacks is how salty they seem to be. The sodium content of 25mg per serving is not bad, but for some reason, I get these sharp spikes of salty flavor in every other bite or so. It almost seems like there are chunks of salt in it that I’m biting into. You get this explosive salty bite from time to time. It’s not a crazy amount of salt, it’s just on occasion present with every other bite. It’s pretty apparent so just be aware of this.

As for sweetness… there isn’t much, at least from what I could tell. I mean, you can sort of taste a bit of sweetness in every initial bite but that’s as far as I can taste it. I’m no expert in taste palettes but at least for me, the sweetness seems to be forecasted by the bitterness. If I were to give you a percentage of the bitter-to-sweet ratio (something I’m just making up in my head right now), I’d say it’s 80 to 20.

What I’m trying to say is that once you swallow the chocolate, you’ll be left with a bitter tongue.

Overall, I really like it. I’m a dark chocolate guy and I’ve heard of lots of research on how dark chocolate is better for your health than the alternative non-dark chocolate varieties.

Obviously, this is an adult snack. It’s made with simple ingredients.

It’s delicious and satisfying.

Who makes Bark Thin?

If you’re curious as me, you’ll probably want to know who makes this stuff and who you are buying this from.

Bark Thin is a snack designed and made by a company called BarkTHINS. While I’m unsure of who exactly this company is. There are no faces on the website. It seems that their company was started about a decade or more ago.

They don’t seem too large of a company (relatively speaking). And that they only have about 7 products.

Their goal is to create one-of-a-kind chocolate with the use of simple non-GMO and Fair Trade ingredients. In case you were curious like me what Fair Trade even means. It means that they make generous deals (or more like fair deals) with the farmers who grow the cocoa beans. 

These farmers in turn are supported by this treaty not to perform any foul operations in growing the cocoa beans. I figure it makes sense. If you pay a farmer next to nothing, their only option would be finding a means to grow it no matter the repercussions.

Remember that Simpson’s episode where Homer wanted to grow that tomato farm so bad, he decided to use uranium? The tomatoes grew really really fast and got really large, and unfortunately, it was at the cost of health and safety.

Bark Thins Snacking Chocolate

Dark chocolate bark with almond and sea salt

Ingredients

Dark chocolate, chocolate, sugar, cocoa butter, milk fat, lecithin (soy), vanilla, almonds, sunflower oil, and sea salt

Contains

Milk, soy, almonds

Snack
almonds, bark, chocolate, dark chocolate, sea salt, snaking

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