This Textured Bar Promises to Change the Way You Experience Chocolate

There’s a chocolate bar out there for every taste—from white to bittersweet, almond-flecked to gold-leafed. But a new series of chocolate bars is banking on the idea that what's on the outside of a dessert counts just as much as (if not more than) what's on the inside.

Japanese design company Nendo is behind “chocolatetexturebar,” a line of chocolate bars that put the emphasis on texture. The “chocolatetexturebar” has 12 snap-off sections—with everything from dots to zigzags—that are designed to add a different flavor component.

The firm writes on its website: “... although 'eating' is generally thought of as one action, actually the taste is recognized after going through various procedures such as 'place on top of the tongue,' 'bite,' 'roll inside the mouth,' 'melt' and 'swallow.' “chocolatexturebar” is a single bar of chocolate, but the surface is divided into 12 faces each with diverse texture. By tasting each face with the tongue … one can enjoy a new taste dimension that is unlike any other conventional chocolates.”

The bars come in milk chocolate, strawberry, white chocolate, bitter chocolate, and matcha flavors. Nendo also offers a “chocolamixture” set, which allows you to mix flavors like freeze-dried mango and raspberry in a chocolate flask, complete with a white chocolate cork. As Slate notes, “While the set takes the mystery out of biting into a filled chocolate, it instead offers the chance to play Willy Wonka.”

This isn’t the first time Nendo has taken a innovative approach to chocolate. Last year, the company created a series of chocolates to celebrate one of its own, designer Oki Sato who was named Designer of the Year by the Paris design trade show Maison et Objet. That “chocolatexture” line focused on shape—with nine different chocolate sculptures, each within the size of a 26mm cube.

Unfortunately, the “chocolatetexturebar” and “chocolamixture” are only available for purchase in Japan, so you’ll need to hop on a plane if you want a taste of the cocoa creations.

[h/t Slate]

Images via Nendo.