Tutu Delicious are a family-run chocolate shop and chocolatier from Watlington in Oxfordshire who are currently celebrating three Great Taste Awards. Chocolatier Zoe Haynes uses a range of fresh ingredients and single origin couvertures while mum designs the packaging and sister Liza manages the shop and heads up the marketing effort.
It was Liza who sent me this tempting looking assortment to get my teeth into.
I thought I’d start my exploration by tasting the award winners themselves. The Orange & Balsamic is a dark chocolate in the shape of a cocoa pod. It’s beautifully tempered with a striking orange creme filling that reminds me of old fashioned fondant chocolates.
The flavour evokes memories of those traditional chocolates too, but is much smoother, fresher and more subtle than similar chocolates I’ve tried. It’s the kind of chocolate that will appeal to traditionalists and modernists alike. I didn’t pick up a great deal of balsamic, but it’s very easy to eat, without being overly sweet.
Next up was the Three Star winning Apricot & Rosemary; a square chocolate with a layer of thick ganache sitting atop an apricot jelly. With its perfectly balanced flavours, it’s easy to see why this won such a high accolade. It’s neither too sweet or intense with it’s subtle fruitiness underlined by the gentle warmth of the rosemary. It’s simple, effortless and delicious.
The final award winner is Mango & Chilli, another two layer dark chocolate square. This one has a white chocolate ganache sitting on a jelly layer and for me deserves more than the single star it was credited with. There’s a decent amount of heat to it and a nice tang to the mango, but as with the others, it’s never overpowering.
The most intriguing looking chocolate in the box is the Oriental Green Tea, a golden head made of dark chocolate with a white chocolate and green tea ganache. This is a really well crafted chocolate with the sweetness of the ganache helping to balance the dark chocolate. The tea is subtle, but in this case perhaps a little too subtle.
Other highlights in my box were the Blackcurrant, another dark chocolate ganache with perfectly balanced fruit and the rich and tart Lime & Vodka.
This is a big range of chocolates that is clearly designed to cater for a wide range of tastes. From the traditional, sweeter flavours to the more modern, darker chocolates, there’s something for everyone here.
I believe Tutu Delicious are currently using Belgian couverture for their range, and I do think that a step up in the quality of the chocolate could take this range from great to amazing, but I’m aware these are chocolates that have to appeal to a rural Oxfordshire audience for whom price is likely a major consideration.
Tutu Delicious don’t currently have a website, but they are on Twitter and Facebook, and if you’d like to buy some you can give them a call or pop into their Watlington shop.
Tutu Delicious
30 High Street
Watlington
Oxfordshire
OX49 5PR
Tel: 01491 612462
It’s time for the final instalment of my reports from my recent trip to Hawaii earlier this year. The Big Island Chocolate Festival is what drew me to the islands in the first place. A simple press release email promoting the event was enough for me jump on a plane and explore the only state in the USA where cacao actually grows.
Of course, being able to grow cacao and doing it on a commercial level are two entirely different things. That’s why the Kona Cacao Association exists. It’s a local industry group providing support and information to the many small farmers on Hawaii’s Big Island.
The association also organises the annual chocolate festival that drew me to the islands. A two day event that’s part conference and part celebration, attracts growers, producers and chocolate lovers from around the state.
Coming in as an outsider, I found the set up of the festival a little unusual and unlike any chocolate festival I’ve attended before. Held in the beautiful Fairmont Orchid Hotel, the bulk of the festival consists of seminars by local and international chocolate and cacao experts. There are no stalls or communal areas, and although some networking took place after each talk, I found it a little difficult to meet people.
On reflection though, the setup did make sense. The nature of the venue (an isolated luxury resort, some distance from the nearest population centres) and the kinds of talks that are useful to attendees don’t lend themselves particularly well to a public event.
What was public was the spectacular gala evening at the end of the second day, which was a great chance to try locally produced chocolates, to network and simply have a good time.
Ed Seguine
The first seminar was a gloriously technical talk on the subject of “Selecting Cacao Cultivar for Flavour” by renowned cacao and chocolate expert Ed Seguine. Ed has over 30 years experience in the industry and what he doesn’t know about heterozygosity isn’t worth knowing!
The talk was aimed squarely at the growers and producers in the audience and was a fascinating glimpse into some of the challenges growers face when trying to develop the best flavours from their crop.
I learned that cacao is one of the most “promiscuous” species around, and will happily cross with other sub-varieties, producing an almost infinite genetic diversity. That’s why chocolate can have more distinct flavour notes than any other food, including wine or coffee.
I also learned about the challenges Hawaiian farmers face managing their own crops. Because of the islands’ geographic location on the far northern edge of the equatorial band where cacao grows, producing a commercially viable crop is hard work. Rather than the usual two harvests per year, most farmers will harvest every two weeks year round. While that might seem great, it results in many small crops that are difficult to ferment effectively and consistently.
Despite the fact I will likely never grow cacao myself, I found Ed’s talk – and the local growing community sharing ideas and asking questions – both fascinating and uplifting.
Ed returned on the second day of the festival to give a talk on tasting. After explaining how to taste chocolate, we then tried a series of samples, each made from Hawaiian cacao. Every sample had a unique style and flavour, and a couple had noticeable defects which we learned to identify. All great fun and a great learning experience for anyone looking to truly understand chocolate.
Jacques Torres
Chocolatier Jacques Torres provided a change of pace with a couple of fun demonstrations. In his New York workshop, Torres and his team use 100 tons of chocolate a year, so the simple ganache and chocolate balloon bowls he made weren’t too challenging. But his energy, enthusiasm and flair made it one of the highlights of the festival.
It was great to hear so many questions from the audience after the demonstration too. There’s clearly a lot of budding chocolatiers in Hawaii!
Vincent Bourdin
Vincent Bourdin is a pastry chef, president of the Asia Pacific Pastry cup and Valrhona representative for the Asia Pacific region. Although his style was a little more sedate than Jaques Torres, Bourdin gave some interesting insight into the world of the pastry chef while creating a couple of incredibly delicious Valrhona desserts.
Greg Colden
The final talk on the second day was perhaps one of the most interesting. Given by Greg Colden of the Kona Natural Soap Company, it focussed on “Cacao as a value add product”.
Colden owns a five acre farm on the island and talked about the financial difficulties that face small scale farmers, particularly in Hawaii. Cacao is a hugely undervalued crop, and when combined with the cost of living in the United States, it’s very difficult to earn a living from it.
Colden decided to explore other means of making income from the land, intercropping his cacao with coffee, mango and papaya and looking at other ways the cacao itself could be used. After sending his crop to the Original Hawaiian Chocolate Company for processing, he receives the winnowings (the discarded cocoa shells) back and uses these to make soap and artisanal paper.
Most of the cacao farmers in Hawaii have significantly less land than Colden, and many don’t realise just how difficult it is to earn a living from it, so the sharing of this kind of knowledge is vital for the local industry and the individuals who drive it.
The Gala Evening
The festival culminated in a big celebration of all things chocolate in the hotel’s ballroom. With live music, stalls and plenty of tempting treats to try, this was more like the kind of event I’m used to.
The guys from Madre, perhaps Hawaii’s best known small-batch chocolate maker were there, along with a raft of local producers. Valrhona had a seemingly endless supply of chocolate desserts, and even Waialua Estate, the biggest cacao growers in Hawaii (owned by Dole) were there with chocolate samples.
Awards were given, speeches were made and a good time was had by all. It was a fitting climax to a unique chocolate festival.
Thank You!
I’d like to say a huge thank you to The Big Island Chocolate Festival organisers for inviting me to their wonderful festival, Fern Gavalek for her invaluable help in arranging everything and The Fairmont Orchid Hotel. Big thanks also to Pam Cooper (Original Hawaiian Chocolate), David Elliott & Nat Bletter (Madre Chocolate), Tamara Armstrong (Manoa Chocolate), Seneca Klassen (Lonohana), Daniel O’Doherty and everyone else who made time for us on our trip to Hawaii.
If you have an interest in chocolate making, cacao, sunshine simply meeting great people, I strongly urge you to consider visiting the wonderful islands of Hawaii. I will most certainly be back for more.
Photo Gallery
Equal Exchange is a “fairly traded” brand that produces a wide range of products from tea & coffee to olive oil, honey, and – of course – chocolate.
It’s the kind of organisation that has me in two minds. One the one hand, it’s a worker owned co-operative that’s producing and promoting fairly traded products. But on the other hand, it’s a relatively big brand with a large range of products made in big factories. I can’t help thinking that the quality of some of the smaller chocolate makers who buy direct from farmers & producers isn’t going to translate into a big umbrella brand like this.
Despite the in-depth story on the wrapper, I’m still unclear where the cacao for this bar comes from. There is a photo of a farmer from Peru on the back and Panama, Ecuador, Peru and the Dominican Republic are mentioned on the inside of the wrapper. I assume that means this is some kind of blend of those origins, which seems a shame given some of the fine flavour cacao that’s grown in the individual countries.
What I can tell you is that it’s a 55% cocoa solids dark chocolate, so there’s a fair amount of sugar along with candied ginger, lemon oil and black pepper.
So how does it taste? Well, almost exactly like you’d expect!
The sweetness of the chocolate and the flavour of the ginger hit you first, followed swiftly by a nicely balanced lemon. Finally the heat from the ginger and black pepper hit you and stay with you long after the chocolate has gone.
While it’s interesting, and the flavours do go together quite well, the black pepper isn’t really necessary here. The ginger alone would have been enough for a pleasant lingering warmth. As it is, half an hour after trying the bar I still have the heat from the pepper in my mouth and I’m ready for it to go away now.
I really wanted to like this chocolate, but it’s just trying too hard for my tastes. The wealth of information on the wrapper that doesn’t explain simple things like where the chocolate comes from isn’t compelling or exciting. The flavours in chocolate had a similar effect on me. There’s too much going on with a lack of focus.
But this isn’t a bad chocolate bar. If you like lemon, ginger and a bit of heat you’ll probably love it. Finding it might be a challenge though, as after checking all the online retailers on the Equal Exchange website, the only place I could find stocking it is Amazon in the US.
If you read our recent review of Madecasse Toasted Coconut, you’ll know how much we like that fruity, Madagascan chocolate. It’s great that such good chocolate is becoming more readily available, but not everyone has access to it, so we thought we would give some away!
We’re giving away six bars of this delicious Madagascan bean-to-bar chocolate to one lucky reader, and all you need do is follow @Chocablog on Twitter and retweet a link to this page to enter!
This is a Twitter based competition, but if you’re not on Twitter already, it only takes a minute to sign up.
To enter, just follow Chocablog (so we can let you know if you win!) then retweet a link to this page.
You can click this link to tweet now if you’re logged in to Twitter.
This competition is open worldwide. One entry per household only.
The competition will close at 12 noon GMT on Wednesday 10th September 2014, and a winner will be picked at random and notified by direct message on Twitter.
