There are many legends that attempt to explain why Valentine's Day is the day we proclaim our love to one another. The first recored link between the two appears to be a mistake, a misreading of Chaucer. However, everyone can agree that it is a wonderful excuse to give and receive chocolate. To help you decide what to give (or what to ask for), we've sampled some chocolates from Sweet Earth Organics, Ithaca Fine Chocolate, and John and Kira's.

Sweet Earth Organic Chocolates

Sweet Earth Organic Chocolates Valentine Hearts come in four foil-wrapped flavors: milk, peanut crunch, bittersweet and peppermint crunch. Their milk chocolate hearts were creamy and sweet with a hint of coconut flavor and a mild taste. Peanut crunch, in the same milk chocolate base, had a homemade taste and a fun crispy rice texture. The bittersweet hearts delivered a strong cocoa flavor and a clean aftertaste, but were described by one tester as "flat." Regretfully, we can't recommend the peppermint crunch hearts. Made with peppermint essential oil, they had a strong, sinus clearing aroma and tasted "a little soapy." Organic and fair-trade chocolate. Sweet Earth Organic Chocolates also sells a Valentine Truffle box, but we weren't able to get our hands on it.

Ithaca Fine Chocolates

At least 10% of Art Bar profits go to The International Child Art Foundation and each bar comes with an art "trading card." We sample four varieties and two flavors really stood out. The Milk Chocolate with Hazelnuts bar had fresh, crunchy hazelnuts, smooth chocolate and a wonderful hazelnut aftertaste. This bar also had a hint of maple, perhaps because it is sweetened with unrefined cane sugar. Their Extra Dark Chocolate was a pleaser among dark chocolate lovers. With a voluptuous texture, one tester summed it up: "It is welcome in my mouth." The Dark Chocolate bar was a little too sweet with the cocoa flavor hidden behind the sugar. Also less popular was the Dark Chocolate and Coconut bar. It is full of yummy coconut shreds, but the chocolate was a little chalky, as if the coconut had absorbed some of the chocolate's oils. Great chocolate but not as perfect as the hazelnut or extra dark bars. Art Bars are packaged in recycled paper and are made with organic, fair trade chocolate. In fact, Ithaca Fine Chocolates claims to have been the first fairtrade chocolatier in the U.S.

John and Kira's

John and Kira's Chocolates are truly in a class by themselves. These handmade chocolates come in mind blowing flavors, each with it's own back story. Even though each piece looks almost identical, we were never wondering which flavor we were tasting. The Coffee Whiskey, made with coffee from the Mut Vitz organic cooperative in Mexico, took us, as one review said "straight to a coffee drink" and the whiskey flavor subtle, but identifiable. The Raspberry, made with raspberries from a small "mostly organic" farm, was very pure, so clearly raspberry that one tester said the chocolate was left behind. While every flavor of John and Kira's was a wonderful surprise of freshness and authenticity, the piece-de-resistance was clearly the Mint. Made with mint grown by elementary school students, eating this chocolate was like standing in a herb garden and pulling leaves directly off a mint plant. Packaged in a wooden box with a melted wax seal and generous ribbon, these chocolates please and impress. While most of their flavors are biodynamic or organic, they use the famous gourmet chocolate, Valrhona, which does not appear to be organic.

---

However you spend this February 14th, you can't go wrong with a little chocolate. Just don't forget to get extra for yourself!