Observant readers might be wondering why I’m writing about Christmas 2010 chocolates that you couldn’t possibly buy in January 2011. There is method (of sorts) in this madness, I assure you.
These “Chocolate Tasting Club” chocolates were a Christmas gift from my lovely friend Pollyanna, and they were interesting enough to me that I wanted to write about them.
You see, The Chocolate Tasting Club is actually a Hotel Chocolat venture, but seemingly not one they like to talk about. In fact, the only mention of Hotel Chocolat is on the protective plastic sheet covering the chocolates inside the box.
The “club” operates on a subscription basis. Pay your membership fee and every month you get sent a new offering along with a scorecard to rate the chocolates.
The chocolates themselves are (as far as I can tell) simply repackaged Hotel Chocolat offerings. A couple even have the Hotel Chocolat ‘HC’ logo embossed on them. We’ve actually written about most of them before, so I’m not going to do an in depth review here, but they’re a nice mix of dark, milk and white chocolates with lots of alcoholic and fruity varieties.
It’s the way they’re sold that interests me most. Given Hotel Chocolat’s upmarket branding, it’s a little odd that The Chocolate Tasting Club is advertised on television with the cheesiest, most cringeworthy mini informercials imaginable. Lucky for you, the only version I can find on YouTube has no sound, because that really is the worst part.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyB46Ei_9wg
I asked a couple of friends who have experience of The Club what they thought about it. One said that they hated every single chocolate they tried, while the other was more positive, saying she enjoyed regularly getting a random selection of things to try that she wouldn’t have normally bought.
There’s no doubting I’ll get through all the chocolates in this box without complaint, so I can’t quite put my finger on what it is that irks me about The Club. I think perhaps it’s because it reminds me of the music & video club I joined many years ago. They sent you free movies and promised you a great deal to start out with, but made their real money by relying on the fact that most people were too lazy to ever cancel their subscription.
I’ve no idea if that’s what’s going on with The Club, but it has that vibe about it. For me, the fact that they chose not to use Hotel Chocolat branding just reinforces that feeling.
Do you have experience of The Chocolate Tasting Club or similar clubs? Have I got this completely wrong? I’d love to hear your feedback, good or bad.
I am pleased to say that I have finally found a chocolate maker in Phoenix. I discovered Wei of Chocolate at a farmer’s market, educating passers by about how to get the most nutrition-wise out of your chocolate. After sampling their plain dark chocolate (all of their chocolates are dark, by the way), I chose a variety tube to bring home.
As you can tell from their name, Wei of Chocolate places emphasis on being good to the body and mind; their website even has write-ups on atmospheric, calming, and thankful thoughts to ponder over your chocolate. And I thought I entered into the chocolate experience exuberantly. Wei of Chocolate is also strict on certain points: their chocolates are organic, vegan, and Fair Trade. All that comes with a price tag: one of these 2.25 ounce tubes is $10. One last note before moving on: unless the tube material is some special sustainable kind, I hope that the company’s high standards decide to swap it out soon (to be fair, the larger sets do come in rice paper bags).
Now, inside this tube are nine flower-shaped chocolates in three flavors, looking quite pretty in their colorful wrappers. In the gold is the 65% Daily Gratitude, which is flavored with chai and some other spices. It’s an earthy chocolate with the chai as an ever-present accent rather than an in-your-face flavor. The taste is calm and collected.
In orange is the 68% Cafe Wei, an espresso chocolate. I think I taste espresso. I think. I would believe it, though, if someone told me this got mislabeled. It mostly tastes chocolaty, rich and earthy again. So as I unwrapped the pink 74% Daily Love, the one with “energizing chili,” I began to think. Spicy chocolate isn’t my absolute favorite, so I wondered if this way of subtle flavors would work out nicer. A slow warmth builds up like strong cinnamon. This is the darkest of the three chocolates, yet I still get sweet notes. The sweet, spicy, chocolaty trio come together like a hot chocolate. My prediction was correct: I like the mood of this chocolate. It’s stronger than I had expected, but the use of cinnamon with the chilli is unique.
In a quote off their website, Wei of Chocolate describe themselves as “designed to be the ideal catalyst for a daily practice of loving and caring for oneself on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level.” As their ingredients and taste go along with this ideal, I would say they’re a place you can go to if it is your ideal, as well, or if you simply like the Fair Trade and Organic pair.
Update: This competition is now closed.
Regular readers will know how excited we were when we found out that you could now buy Mast Brothers Chocolate online in the UK through The Chocolate Society. Mast Brothers produce some of the best chocolate in the world, and they do it all by hand, from the bean, from their base in Brooklyn.
Well now we’ve teamed up with The Chocolate Society to bring you a chance to try this amazing chocolate for yourself by winning all six amazing Mast Brothers bars. That’s a prize worth over £50!
This competition is for our Twitter followers, but if you’re not on Twitter already, it only takes a minute to sign up.
To enter, just follow Chocablog and The Chocolate Society (so we can let you know if you win!), then retweet a link to this page.
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You can click this link to tweet now if you’re logged in to Twitter.
This competition is open to UK residents only. One entry per person.
The competition will close at 12 noon GMT on Wednesday 19th January 2011, and a winner will be picked at random and notified by direct message on Twitter.
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Update: This competition is now closed.
Even with less than two days in San Francisco, I still had to peer into a couple of chocolate shops in the area. (Ghirardelli Square doesn’t count: it’s a great place to spend the afternoon but not a major chocolate spot.) Closer to the Shore, I wandered toward a sign saying in bright yellow letters “Chocolate Shop,” adorned on the top and sides with giant three-dimensional truffles. Inside the San Franciscan-design building were piles and shelves of candies and chocolates with a carousel horse and a giant chandelier in the middle.
I gravitated toward the natural tones of the Madécasse Chocolate section, deciding something from here could be the one thing I brought from the store. Although I paid a hefty ten dollars for one 75 gram bar, they go for the more reasonable six dollars online.
Madécasse is an interesting company: all their chocolate is single origin Madagascar that is also made in the country (the back of the wrapper proclaims that the top is “tied by hand in Madagascar”). Madécasse claims that they create “4x more income than fair trade cocoa alone.” I picked out the 70% bar to try.
The face is divided into the right sized bites, and though the texture is not the smoothest in the world (rough would, however, be too extreme a term), it is nice in the handmade way. It has a light flavor with the sweet fruit and berry Madagascan notes among a few bitter twinges. It reminded me of perhaps a chocolate cinnamon cake.
I like this concept of chocolate purely from Madagascar. The chocolate inherently has good flavor and is well-made, also having a conscience for ethics.
