I’d like to introduce you to my new baby. Say hello to Cocoa Runners.
For the last six months, I’ve been working with a team of chocolate industry experts and e-commerce veterans to launch a new service that we hope will introduce stunning artisan chocolate to a much wider audience.
Cocoa Runners is a subscription service that will deliver the very best bean-to-bar chocolate right to your door.
Every month, subscribers get 4 carefully chosen chocolate bars delivered in our specially designed letterbox friendly box. Each box is curated around a theme that links all the chocolate together and comes with our unique tasting cards – and some extra chocolate for sharing with a friend.
When you receive your box, you’ll be able to rate and review all the chocolate and buy more of the ones you love from our exclusive members-only Chocolate Library.
But when we created Cocoa Runners, we wanted to go beyond just delivering you four bars every month. We wanted to unwrap the stories behind some of the amazing people that make the chocolate. There is a real movement toward ethically sourced chocolate produced by people with a real passion for sustainability, and we think those people are worth talking about.
But we’ll also be delving deeper into the chocolate itself. Between us, we’ve tasted and analysed over 500 bars, and we wanted a clear and concise way of getting what we’ve learned across. After looking at all sorts of flavour wheels and graphs, we came up with a simple set of icons for chocolate type, texture, intensity and flavour notes.
These icons aren’t just great for giving you at-a-glance information about a particular bar, they also allow us to do some very clever technical stuff with recommendations. As you rate the bars in your Cocoa Runners box, we can build up an increasingly accurate picture of the kinds of chocolate you like and other bars we think you should try.
We’d love to tell you more about Cocoa Runners, so people do take a look around our website and add us on Facebook and Twitter. We’ll also be exhibiting at Salon du Chocolat – the UK’s largest ever chocolate show – at Olympia this weekend, so come along and say hello to the team there too.
There was a time when the words “Bean To Bar” would elicit real excitement because it was kind of unusual. It wasn’t that chocolate was not being made that way, but it hadn’t yet become linked with what was thought of as quality chocolate. These days though, the term is perhaps getting rather ubiquitous and trendy, and I’m getting to the point where I try to tune it out and simply sample each chocolate on its own merits.
That said, I was a little bit excited to see an unfamiliar name on the shelves at a local shop which did proudly declare that it was Bean-To-Bar from Madagascar because island is definitely one of the more reliable chocolate locations in the world.
Madécasse are not only getting their beans from that island paradise, they are also making the chocolate over there. But they are also going above and beyond the usual Fair Trade thing by working with the farmers and conserving the habitat too – basically, the entire process from harvesting to wrapping the completed bars happens over there. So there’s a lot that is admirable about what Madécasse are doing.
They are good looking bars of chocolate. The packaging has a bit of quaintness to it, in the best possible way, right down to it being tied at the top with a little bit of straw. The bar has a decent sheen, but the texture might be a little too grainy for some people. Personally I liked the slight graininess of it because it helps to instill that whole bean to bar element.
And the taste? This is one of the most unusual bars I’ve eaten in a long time simply because I keep changing my mind about how I feel about it. Initially I found it far too sweet – it comes in at a respectable 63% – and thought the spices were too aggressive. But when I came back to it again, I was a lot more taken with the mix of heat and sweetness that comes from the cinnamon. And back and forth a few more times.
This was definitely a bar which benefitted from nibbling rather than eating – sticking with smaller amounts prevented it from getting overwhelming. At its best, the slow build up of heat and earthiness made for a great combination, but at its worst the underlying fruitiness is dominated by all that spice. It certainly isn’t dull and I keep going back to it which must mean something.
Madécasse are definitely on my radar now though and I will be picking up some of their other bars next time I go shopping.
Chocolate Week is in full swing and we’ve been out and about sampling more chocolate-themed afternoon teas!
Yesterday, we visited the rather lovely Langham hotel just of London’s Regent Street. Until October 20th, they’re running this special afternoon tea in partnership with Valrhona.
Of course, I can’t help compare this to the Thorntons afternoon tea I sampled last week at the Park Lane Hotel. And the first thing you notice when you walk into the Palm Court at The Langham is how beautiful the room is. I much prefer the atmosphere at The Langham, and it’s high ceilings and decoration is both more stylish and a little less cramped than the Park Lane Hotel.
Our tea started with a simple “pre-dessert” – this very tasty lemon posset.
As it turned out, this was the highlight for me. It was tangy and tasty, and while everything else looked amazing, it just didn’t quite work as well as it could.
The sandwiches look interesting, but they were just “Ok” rather than fabulous. I couldn’t help but compare it to the Thorntons tea where I demolished all the sandwiches very quickly. Here, the quality just wasn’t quite as good. And I don’t know that I want a white chocolate, cauliflower and fish ice cream cone anyway.
The scones were better, and I thought they had a great texture, but my partner didn’t like the fact that they were dusted with sugar and slightly sweet. I didn’t mind so much. I can live with sweet.
Finally, we had the fabulous looking cakes. I liked the fact that you’re given two of everything so you don’t have to share (one up on the Thorntons tea there), but when it came down to it, everything looked just a little bit better than it tasted.
The roasted pistachio tower was easily my favourite thing, but everything else fell a little short. The Black Forest Dome didn’t taste like black forest at all, and the Eton Mess push-pop was just odd. None of it was bad by any means. But I wanted it to be fantastic, and it didn’t quite reach those levels.
If I had to pick between my two Chocolate Week afternoon teas, I’d have to go for the Thorntons one at The Park Lane Hotel. I don’t think you’d regret doing either, but the Thorntons version just seemed a little better thought out and some much more interesting flavours.
The full menu for Chocolate Week Afternoon Tea At The Langham looks like this:
Finger sandwiches including:
- White chocolate and cauliflower mousse with Scottish smoked salmon
- Confit magret duck pithivier with cocoa nibs
- Burford brown egg mayonnaise with broccoli cress
- Label Anglais Chicken and mushroom cluster
- Smoked mountain ham with 12 month old Comte and sweetcorn
- Warm selection of plain and golden raisin scones with Devonshire clotted cream and strawberry preserves
Selection of French pastries and mini cakes:
- White chocolate and raspberry Eton mess with marshmallow pavlova
- Kalingo Cremeux, Chocolate brownies with sea salt caramel
- Jivara and Ivoire Blackforest dome with red velvet cake
- Roasted Pistachio Ivoire tower with Crunchy Caramelia pearls
- Tangy lemon posset with berry and elderflower
Langham Hotel Chocolate Afternoon Tea (£40 per person)
1c Portland Place
Regent Street
London
W1B 1JA
www.palm-court.co.uk
Chocolate Week starts on Monday and climaxes with Salon du Chocolat, the UK’s largest ever chocolate show at Olympia on Friday, Saturday & Sunday! We’ve got 5 PAIRS of tickets to give away to Chocablog fans!
To enter, just like us on Facebook and leave a comment on this photo telling us your favourite chocolate maker or chocolatier and why you love them.
We’ll pick the winners on Wednesday 16th October (UK only). Good luck!
Enter Here
