My wife and I were walking through the gourmet market at a major shopping mall in town.  My eyes drifted to the bottom row of the chocolate aisle.  Could my eyes be deceiving me with the glint of a gold wrapper?  Was it now possible to find Whittaker bars in Bangkok?  

In days past, Aussie Dave posted me Whittaker bars from Australia.  95% of the Whittaker bars reviewed on this site are due to his generosity.  The Bangkok variety available was so limited that any new Whittaker reviews will also be due to his generosity.  The Bangkok gourmet outlet stocked, in 50 gram sizes, peanut slabs, almond golds, fruit & nuts, cashew nuts and creamy milks, all of which I've reviewed. (This did not stop us from purchasing all of the above in large quantities).  There remained only one bar in the lot I had not previously sampled in its present incarnation:  the Dark Orange.     

Now let me back up for a minute.  I did review a Whittaker orange bar, way back in October 2010.  This bar was then known as the Zestful Dark Orange and remains, to date, one of the lowest ranked bars I've ever reviewed.  It was an atrocity.  For awhile, I thought my review had made the world a better place to live in when I noticed Whittaker's had removed this travesty from their web site.  Could I really delude myself the Chocolate Republic wielded that kind of power?  Whittaker's just removed the bar in order to retool it.     

Had the bar really changed?  Did I even want to know about it?   Imagine re-meeting someone who'd abused you in the past, insisting to you s/he'd changed and wished to start the relationship afresh.  Your first instinct would be to see them as they were and perhaps (and probably) still are.  Old psychological wounds would be reopened.  Depending on how abusive the relationship, your mind would be tormented anew and a breakdown could result.  Was it worth that price for me to re-review this loser?    

The only obvious difference I could see between the old version and this one was that Whittaker's had upped the cocoa content from 47% to 50%, as they've done with their entire bittersweet range.  This minute change is like a child molester becoming a priest and saying he found the Lord, when he's really just done that to secure a new and respected venue to scope young flesh.        

Tears in my eyes, my hands shaking from the psychological trauma, I bought a few Dark Oranges so as to confront my deepest fears directly.  Summoning strength from within, my wife whispering in my ear that everything would be okay, I took my first bite.  The October 2010 disappointments returned -- an unbalanced orange back taste and a lack of cacao to cover it all up.   I breathed in and out furiously to forestall any mental collapse.       

Fortunately, what didn't return in this version were large chunks of oranges, punishing my mouth with every chew.  Whittaker's took those out. Probably a cost saving implement, but the lack of those vile dry oranges in every morsel was an improvement.  A big improvement, no.   Let's be frank. Whittaker's previous version was such a monstrosity in the chocolate world that doing almost anything, including cessation of the bar's manufacture, would have yielded improvements.     

There's an on adage which states that a leopard can't change his spots.  The Zestful Dark Orange of yore put on a mustache and got a nice tan.  Stripped to the core, this bar is just a slightly more attractive child molester.