Another season is upon us, which means another collection of tea-based chocolates from Katie Christoffers’ Matcha Chocolat.
The presentation is exactly the same as previous collections – the box hasn’t changed at all – only the contents have changed. Well… most of the contents, at least.
Masala Chai
Milk chocolate ganache infused with Masala Chai enrobed in a dark chocolate dome and topped with crystalised ginger.
This chocolate has formed the centrepiece of all Matcha’s collections. Although it’s a great tasting chocolate, with a subtly spiced ganache and a nice piece of crystalised ginger on top, I would have preferred to see something new here, particularly as you get four of these chocolates per box, and three of all the rest.
Genmaicha
Dark chocolate enrobed square with milk chocolate ganache infused with Japanese Genmaicha tea.
The only non-domed chocolate in the collection, and an interesting one too. The ganache is described as “nutty” and “leafy”, but I picked up more burnt toffee and coffee flavours from it. The soft, smooth dark ganache works well with these more earthy flavours.
Secret Garden
Dark chocolate dome with milk chocolat ganache infused with violet scented tea and a layer of violet jelly.
I’m quite partial to violet, so the first thing I did with this was to eat the little piece of crystalised violet on the top. Yum. The flavour continues all the way through the chocolate, with the tea just providing a delicate spicy flavour at the end. Not my favourite of the bunch, but still very nice!
April Snow
White chocolate ganache with white tea liqueur enrobed in white chocolate.
A soft and creamy white ganache with a subtle fruity aroma and flavour. The flavour of the tea comes through right at the end, when the sweet creaminess of the white chocolate has started to fade. Another great chocolate, but I’m not entirely sure why a chocolate called “April Snow” is in an autumnal collection!
Keemum Mango
Milk chocolate dome with milk chocolate ganache, inflused with mango scented tea and Chinese Keemum tea, topped with dried mango.
I didn’t really pick up on any tea flavours at all with this chocolate. Just a creamy, mango flavoured ganache. Again, a great chocolate, but not something I’d call spectacular.
Overall, another beautifully made and presented collection. The flavours are subtle, and the ganaches are light and smooth. It’s a quality product made by a skilled chocolatier.
But I still have niggling doubts about tea chocolates in general. It wasn’t the tea I picked up on here, so much as the flavours that have been added. Perhaps I just drink too much PG to truly appreciate them.
I met the ladies from Pour Toi at the Speciality & Fine Food Fair at Olympia last week (photos of that on our Facebook page). I love meeting new people in the chocolate industry, and I especially love it when their products are as beautiful as these. I was offered a box of dark chocolates and a big chocolate chip cookie to try. How could I refuse?
It’s clear from the outset that this is a quality product. The packaging is simple but elegant, with lusterous, copper-coloured diagrams of cocoa pods on a matt background. The only branding is on the band that holds the box closed – a great feature in itself as it means you can re-use the box after you’ve finished scoffing the chocolates.
My photos don’t really do these chocolates justice, because they are beautifully finished. They’re glossy and perfectly moulded, without a blemish. The “Lego brick” style chocolate, particularly impressed me, given my own efforts at making chocolate Lego in the past!
The chocolates consist of a 53.5% dark chocolate shell with a variety of fillings, including pralines, whisky and a very tangy passion fruit puree. They all taste nice and fresh, but if I had one minor niggle it would be that the centres are just slightly too firm.
The chocolate itself is quite reasonable. It clearly doesn’t have the highest cocoa content out there, but it’s a good compromise between sweetness and chocolateyness. All in all, the chocolates don’t have the amazing flavours and freshness of the last selection box I reviewed from Cocoa Mountain, but they’re still pretty good.
Which brings me to the cookie. Unfortunately, I broke the one I brought home, so you’ll have to make do with a slightly blurry photo of one I took at the show.
These are large, crumbly chocolate chip cookies that perfectly tread the line between crunchy and soft. That cracked outside has a gentle crunch to it, while the inside remains slightly moist, rather than chewy. They’re very light for a cookie, and the main thing that prevents them falling apart in your hand is the generous handful of chocolate chips in each one.
There’s a hint of orange and a hint of spice in the flavour, but the chocolate comes through front and centre. I really enjoyed mine, and I’ll definitely be looking out for these in the future. Yum.
Pour Toi don’t have an online shop yet, but they do have contact details on their web site. I’d recommend dropping them an email to find out where you can get hold their stuff – and tell them we sent you! (We’re hoping they’ll give us another cookie!)
Writing for Chocablog has changed me. I used to be able to enjoy going to places and not spend my time digging around in shops obsessively looking for unusual kinds of chocolate, but not any more. Now I spend every waking minute trying to find the best that Canada has to offer, so I can share with the rest of the world. You’re welcome.
Maybe I exaggerate, but I did happen to find some intriguing small bars hiding in the corner of a touristy shop in St. Andrews (a lovely little seaside town in New Brunswick, Canada) when I was out grabbing lunch. And they weren’t the usual tacky touristy kind of chocolate either – seeing both organic and 70% on the wrapper was good enough for me.
It turns out that all the bars that Organicfair make follow that same basic outline: dark 70% organic chocolate with stuff added to it. And the stuff is what makes their range so interesting because they have some pretty imaginative combinations of spices, fruits and other yummy things. I went with the most obvious one – Canadiana – which throws some Maple Syrup, Sundried Apples and Alder Smoked Salt into the chocolate.
The bar itself is a nice size – big enough to get a good taste, but small enough that you can make a pretty convincing argument for not sharing with anyone else. The chocolate isn’t very glossy, nor the darkest I’ve seen for the percentage and that it is also true of the flavour. The chocolate is definitely secondary to the other ingredients and considering how the selling point is those other ingredients, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
The star of Canadiana is the salt. I don’t think I’d pick it out as being smoked salt, nor would I recognise how alder tastes anyway, but the combination of salt and surprisingly mild chocolate is a good one. The apple pieces provide some chewiness because of their generous size, and when chewed they give some recognisable appley goodness. The maple syrup, on the other hand, is absolutely nowhere to be seen – if it didn’t say it was there on the label, I’d have no idea it was here. That’s a real shame because the final transition to some sweetness at the end would be the perfect finish after the salt finally fades away.
So Organicfair’s Canadiana isn’t a bad bar but it just doesn’t deliver what it promises on the outside. It is good enough to make me want to delve into the rest of their range to see if any of the 14 other bars have that perfect balance that is sadly lacking here.
After my previous encounter with LU biscuits, I’d thought that was the end of the matter. So imagine my surprise when in the same supermarket recently and I found there are more “European Biscuits” to try.
This time around, it’s LU Pim’s, a name which immediately has me thinking of a better known English drink, and frightfully well dressed people at the Opera making polite conversation, old chap. Such is the power of word association.
To me these Pim’s have a pretty strange name for what seems to be another version of the Jaffa Cake – something which has made its appearance in Australia over the last few years through various imports. Interestingly the original McVitie’s Jaffa Cake is not readily available here – only the various copies – some more dodgy than others. This creates something of a disadvantage for a comparison between products, but we’ll just have to make do.
First up – these claim to be raspberry / framboise, and on opening the pack there is a fairly sweet, fruity, jam sort of aroma. It’s hard to pick it as raspberry, but it’s quite pleasant. The biscuit is very soft, more of a cake, and slightly chewy with a generally neutral flavour.
I’m afraid to say I’m disappointed – from a technical perspective – by the chocolate topping. It looks quite nice, carefully molded and shiny, but the flavour is not very pronounced; and the ingredients list calls it “sweet chocolate with vegetable fat coating”, which sounds rather unappealing. The vegetable fat is listed as “one of Illipe oil, Palm oil, or Shea oil”. I have no idea what two of those three are.
As the judges on Masterchef Australia love to say: “it all comes down to taste”. And actually, for all my objections and careful analysis, these actually taste pretty good. The family like them too – they met with universal approval, and the pack disappeared pretty quickly.
Worth a try for the “cheap and cheerful” category.
