Cacao Sampaka are a Spanish chocolate company, with shops in Spain, Portugal, the Middle East & Japan. They currently have an online store in the UK and I think you can expect to see more of them over here soon. I picked this particular bar up at Chocolate Unwrapped in October though.
You might be wondering how exactly you get a gin & tonic into a bar of chocolate without making a big mush. The answer it seems, is that you replicate the flavour of a gin & tonic, rather than trying to use the real thing.
This milk chocolate bar from Spain’s Cacao Sampaka contains small crystals of lemon & juniper to recreate the flavour of the drink.
The chocolate itself comes in two thin 50g slabs. It’s not the best looking chocolate I’ve ever seen, but I do like the format. Two pieces means you can share one and keep one, and the thin slab melts in the mouth and releases the flavour quickly.
Overall, the effect is pretty good. The tiny pieces of lemon just the right amount of citrus zing to cut through the milk chocolate without overpowering it too much, and although the juniper is very subtle, it does taste a little like a gin & tonic. It’s difficult to get a real guage on the quality of the chocolate itself, but this is more about the other flavours than the chocolate.
I found myself quite enjoying this bar, and it went down quite well with my friends at a Christmas party. It’s not what I’d call fine chocolate, but as a bar to nibble on I can recommend it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be available in their online store at the moment.
Up until a few months ago, I’d never heard of Patchi. Then, within the space of a few days, Simon found their store in Doha, Qatar, and I found them at the Chocolate Unwrapped show in London. So here are our individual experiences of the selection of Patchi chocolates we tried on different sides of the planet…
Simon Says…
On this, my second visit to Doha, I was staying in another part of town, close to the City Centre Shopping Complex (Doha is fast becoming a chain of shopping centres linked by roads) and I couldn’t help but notice a new chocolate shop there, especially as I had to walk past it every time I went to buy groceries.
Naturally I had to investigate, so business card in hand I popped in one afternoon and made a few purchases. Half a dozen individual chocolates from their range, and a couple of bars.
My selections included ‘Désir’ (a date stuffed with an almond and swathed in dark chocolate and typically Arabian), Casablanca (a milk chocolate shell with gianduja, hazelnut and orange peel) and Emotion (dark chocolate filled with a pistachio croquant).
As you can see from the photos, these chocolates are very well presented. The foils are heavy and expensive looking and the chocolates themselves are well made, very much like the Chopin chocolates I found last time I was in Doha.
The problem comes with the tasting, where it soon becomes apparent that this is a clear case of style over substance. The fillings are quite palatable but the chocolate (and in particular the dark chocolate is rather disappointing). I actually found myself preferring the milk chocolates (not like me at all) as the dark chocolate was greasy on the palate and fairly tasteless.
The only things I could recommend would be the pistachio croquant filling in ‘Emotion’ (but not the chocolate) and the mixture of flavours in ‘Casablanca’ and ‘Perfetto’ (hazelnut, raisin and orange peel).
Over to you, Dom.
Dom’s View…
The shop pictures Simon sent tied in perfectly with what I saw at the Patchi stand at Chocolate Unwrapped. An elegant and chic Middle Eastern shopping experience, with the emphasis on style.
Patchi started in Lebanon 25 years ago, and now have shops all over the world, including a concession in Harrod’s (which, looking at the ugly price label on the box, is where these came from). According to their parent company’s web site, they’ve since branched out into sliverwear, artificial flowers and printing. An odd mix, but I can see how they got there.
Back to the chocolates. Once you get past the outer packaging, you’re presented with some individual chocolates, wrapped in thick paper. They look nice, but not spectacular. The chocolate bar I was given turns out to be a very simple milk chocolate, although there’s no labels on the wrapper or the box to describe the contents. I guess they’re going for the pre-wrapped gift market.
Unwrap the chocolates, and that feeling of “Ok, but not spectacular” continues. The chocolates look well made, but they also look a little bit like something you might find in a box of Thorntons Continental. Or jar of Quality Street.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what they taste like too. They’re very bland and very ordinary. Turns out all that fancy packaging just hides some run of the mill mass produced chocolates.
The fillings are hard, rather than soft and smooth, and don’t have a lot of flavour. The milk chocolate is just that bit too sweet and creamy, and the dark chocolate isn’t isn’t that dark and has very little flavour. Nothing tastes particularly bad, but this certainly isn’t fine chocolate.
So when it comes down to it, the main problem here is the price. £8.50 for eight small, cheap chocolates is way, way over the top. £1.50 would be more acceptable, but even then it would be pushing it.
I heard a rumour that Patchi are planning on opening a shop here in London, but given the buoyant state of the London chocolate scene and the savvy consumers that shop there, I doubt they’ll have much success outside the tourist trap of Harrod’s.
Most of us know by now about the ethical choices chocolate-makers can stand by; we also know that no matter how many stamps, seals, and labels a chocolate has, taste still matters. I am happy, therefore, to introduce you to another company that takes both of these in stride. John & Kira’s is based out of Philadelphia, using local ingredients when they can and sourcing others from places like the Sir Lankan co-op from which they get tea. What I found most interesting is that they also work with programs in schools for ingredients like their mint. Hence the name of the two bars I was sent — Urban Garden Bars.
The Tangy Orange and Garden Rosemary I was hesitant about, but one sniff and hesitation turned to excitement. The fresh smell of the rosemary had me thinking of the coming holiday season and all of its glorious dishes. In other words, it isn’t odd at all. Though I was letting my thoughts wander as I put the first piece in my mouth, my attention was quickly yanked back. Using a 40% milk chocolate from Valrhona, the tastes are of cream, light and delicate chocolate, and a combination of the rosemary and orange. Everything is so light and harmonious, yet full of flavor. It exceeded my expectations. Delicious and well put-together.
The Mighty Urban Garden Mint I was less excited to try, simply because of how common mint is. But this bar isn’t done in the common way: while finding mint oil in an ingredients list can be cause for celebration enough, John & Kira’s lists “fresh mint leaves.”
The bar does smell like there is a mint sprig embedded inside (really, there aren’t pieces of mint leaves floating around, don’t worry). The mint taste is not overly pronounced, but since it is the taste you get biting into a mint leaf, this works out in the right way. The Valrhona chocolate is 62% here; add the overall freshness to that and you’ve found the mint bar you were looking for… if you were looking for a mint bar.
You have no idea how hard it is to research an unknown chocolate when you not only don’t speak the language, but also can’t read the alphabet. Makes it quite tough to type things into Google.
Luckily, the two words on the back of these Greek chocolate bars that I did understand were “Kraft Foods”, and with a bit of research I was able to find the name of the brand and take things from there.
So the two bars we have here are a 70% dark chocolate and a strange “dark looking” bar with orange pieces, that as fast as I can make it is only 35% cocoa solids.
Despite being a little bit battered, the chocolate survived its travels in good condition with no blooming, and I find myself quite liking the design.
Aside from the orange bar having a slightly paler colour, both bars look the same.
The aroma of the dark chocolate bar immediately reminded me of the ION dark chocolate with mastic that I reviewed last year. I have no idea if this bar is also made with mastic, but putting it into random products does seem to be a peculiarly Greek thing to do.
It has an interesting flavour as well, but rather than the pine-like taste of the ION Mastic bar, this one has the distinct flavour of peanuts. It’s quite odd.
The orange bar is much sweeter, and although it does have some of the same underlying aromas and flavours, the sugar and candied orange are the predominant flavours. It reminds me of Cadbury’s Bournville – more confectionery than real chocolate.
Without knowing more about these bars, how they’re sold and who they’re aimed at, it’s difficult to write in much detail about them. I would imagine they’re the kind of thing you’d find in Greek newsagents, rather than in a chocolate shop. They’re interesting to try once, but ultimately I wouldn’t buy them for myself.
