Rogers’ Chocolates have been around for a long, long time and as a result it is hard to think of them as anything but a very traditional chocolate company. And considering their line-up of tinned chocolates and their Victoria Creams, they embrace that history and it works for them. But every so often, they throw out a curveball like their new High Tea Chocolate Bars.
These bars couple together some of Rogers’ 70% chocolate with different varieties of tea provided by Silk Road, a tea company also based in Victoria, British Columbia. The three bars in the range are Matcha, Earl Grey and Chai Tea, and all the ingredients are certified organic too, making this as healthy as chocolate gets. Plus the bars are just 50 grams, so it is tough to really overindulge.
I should preface this with the fact that I’m not really someone who sits down with a cup of tea on a regular basis. There is absolutely no doubt that these are flavoured with tea because both the aroma and the taste is dominated by the tea. And when 70% chocolate ends up taking the backseat, you know that you’re dealing with some strong flavours. Yet the balance is good and the combination works well in each and every case although, naturally, I have my favourite.
Out of the wrapper, the bars pretty much all look the same with Rogers’ logo, the year of their inception and some maple leafs just so there’s no confusion about which country it comes from. The chocolate has a little bit of texture to it, in part because there is the occasional piece of tea mixed in and also down to the slight graininess of the chocolate itself.
The Matcha bar is the subtle one of the trio, with the tea and the chocolate working in real harmony. Green tea is such a common flavour these days that it doesn’t really provide the surprise that it might have a couple of years ago, but this is a nice version of it.
The Earl Grey bar was my least favourite because I’m not a fan of that distinctive perfumed taste that comes with that kind of tea rather than it being unpleasant. When it comes down to it, if you like Earl Grey tea you will likely enjoy it but the converse is definitely true too.
The Chai Tea bar stands head and shoulders above the other two, at least to my palate. The mixture of black tea with all those other spices creates a complex flavour that shifts and changes with each square. There’s an initial burst of cinnamon which is elbowed out of the way by the ginger and cloves before settling into the almost metallic black tea and cardamom, then they all dance around together taking turns leading. Very clever stuff.
So all in all, Rogers’ Chocolates have done a good job here. Tea drinkers will love these all of these, while everyone else should at least try the Chai Tea bar for its lovely blend of flavours.
In chocolate-tasting circles, the name ‘Mast Brothers‘ is spoken with quiet reverence. Two brothers from Brooklyn who have somehow managed to make – I’m told by reliable sources – some of the best chocolate in the world.
I had to find out for myself, so I ventured to the only place outside New York that sells it, Paul A. Young’s shop. The shop was heaving with Easter chocolate hunters, all intent on picking up such delights as sea salted caramel eggs, but I only wanted one thing. Mast Brothers.
Other shoppers looked at me strangely when I asked the assistant. But she knew. The chocolate is not on display in the shop, so she ventured downstairs and came back with the last two bars they had. This Fleur de Sel bar and Coffee one.
I paid £8.95 each for these 70g bars. Probably the most I’ve paid for a bar of chocolate, yet somehow they seemed worth it from the start. The packaging is beautiful. Printed on thick, simply patterned paper with the logo carefully glued on separately, as with the ingredients on the back.
Inside, the bar itself is beautifully wrapped in gold foil. It looks and feels like a gold bar. Somehow I knew I wasn’t going to be disappointed.
Unwrap it and you’re immediately greeted by an intense, fruity aroma.
The chocolate itself has a nice finish. Attractive and glossy without being overly shiny. There’s no bubbles in the chocolate, but you can tell from the edges that this has been hand molded, rather than produced by some machine that makes perfect bars every time.
The underside reveals the Fleur de Sel. Tiny grains of salt that don’t look much, but significantly alter the nature of this bar.
The bar is thin, but feels solid and snaps with a satisfying click. Place a square on your tongue and suddenly your mouth is filled with amazing flavours.
It might seem strange, the flavours you get depend on which way up you place the chocolate on your tongue. Place it salt side down, and you’re immediately hit by the intensity of the fleur de sel as the small crystals dissolve quickly. The salt flavour briefly overwhelms the chocolate, but it’s a much more rounded flavour than a table salt and quickly fades back.
Personally I love it that way, but if you’re less keen on getting that initial burst of salt flavour, place the square the other way up and the chocolate and fleur de sel melt and release their flavours much more evenly.
And what flavours they are. I’ve always been a particular fan of the light, fruity flavour of Madagascan beans. Up to now, Amano’s Madagascan bar has been my favourite dark chocolate of all time. Up to now.
This bar has three ingredients. Cacao, cane sugar and fleur de sel. Yet it is the most intensely flavoured dark chocolate I’ve ever had. It’s sweet, fruity, zingy and chocolatey, and I absolutely love it. It really is quite hard to believe that so much flavour can come from three such simple ingredients. That’s a reflection not only of the ingredients themselves, but of the expertise and love that’s gone into making the chocolate.
Some might find the salt a little too intense, but I think it’s an essential part of this bar. Not only does it add a unique flavour of its own, but it lifts the cocoa flavours to a new level.
I’m really looking forward to trying the rest of the Mast Brothers range (when I can afford it!), but for now, this is my new favourite chocolate.
Choki of Brockley were new to me at last week’s London Chocolate Festival.
Based in Brockley in South London and started by Gemma and Rowan just last year, they produce a range of handmade bars and truffles. Naturally, the stuff in the colourful wrappers caught my attention first. My passion for freeze dried berries made this a must-have purchase.
Good packaging always gets my attention, and I particularly liked the Choki bars. Gold foil wrapped in simply printed paper, patterned on the inside and roughly cut with a logo in raised gold lettering. The bars are very obviously handwrapped, but they’re done with a bit of style and fun.
The chocolate is dark and glossy and listed at a very precise 70.2% cocoa solids minimum. It’s a little soft, but that could be down to the addition of some natural raspberry essence in the chocolate itself.
It’s rich and smooth with just a hint of fruit, and is quite pleasant although not spectacular.
The freeze dried raspberries are scattered randomly over the base of the chocolate. It would have been nice to have had a bit more attention to detail paid here because you often end up with a chunk that has no raspberry in it at all.
The other issue is with the raspberries themselves. They’re tangy, almost to the point of sourness and just when you expect the sweet fruitiness to come through, there’s… nothing. Just a slightly floury aftertaste. I expect the tanginess, but without the pay-off of the burst of flavour you usually get with freeze dried fruit, they’re just not that appealing.
Overall, this is a nicely made bar of decent quality dark chocolate, but one that’s ultimately let down by less than perfect fruit. I’ve got some more from Choki, so I’m looking forward to seeing if things improve next time.
In the aisles of holiday goods, this Easter egg caught my eye — hazelnut truffle in a real eggshell? That’s a new one for me. It was three or four dollars, but looked very pretty, so I had to try it out. These eggs are German-made, by a company called Gut Springenheide. Inside the box, the egg is protected by a plastic case. Freed from these, it looks even more beautiful. The paint has a light shimmer, and the stripes seem to be hand-painted. There is a small piece on the bottom to cover where the chocolate was poured into the shell. Really very hard to want to break into it.
The side of the box directs to “just crack and peal the egg shell.” I gave it a light smack on the plate and found that the smacked part peels off easy enough, but the rest only comes off in small pieces. Consequently, I only peeled half of the shell off at first, using a knife to slice pieces off. It would be too difficult to get at the chocolate, except that part of the novelty is in this shell.
The chocolate truffle is very smooth and soft, the hazelnut much stronger than in most chocolates. It is the second ingredient after sugar. The chocolate seems an alright quality; the texture is probably the best part about it, though it’s hard to tell since the hazelnut flavor is so strong. Towards the bottom, there was a biggish hollow space, but as it doesn’t seem the easiest thing in the world to fill eggshells with chocolate, I hardly mind.
This idea of an outer shell covering a soft chocolate put me in mind of The ChocolateSmith’s wax chocolates, which were also fun to delve into. Being the size of a regular egg, this one seems a little small at first, but at 50 grams, it really is an okay size. I’d buy it again; if these eggs are available yearly, I could see buying one each year.
