chocolate orangutan
On Saturday I visited the Chocolate Unwrapped show, the culmination of Chocolate Week held at London’s Vinopolis. The show included a chocolate wall that you could engrave your name on, chocolate statues and talks on chocolate. I’m not going to lie, our sole aim in visiting the show was to taste as many free samples of chocolate as humanly possible. Why go to a talk on chocolate when you can taste it? My high point was experiencing a ridiculous chocolate buzz where I had so much sugar rushing though my blood I actually scared myself with the speed that I was talking and moving my head around. My flatmate had an incredible looking chocolate crepe from Rabots Estate, and wins the award for chocolate monster (she is unbeatable in the tasting stakes I tell you).
So, as mentioned, tasting was obviously our first (and quite frankly, only) priority and we were not disappointed. Thorntons was the most generous of all stands piling up their samples of biscuits and chocolates, like their Sicilian orange truffle. A chocolate orange explosion, this was truly scrumptious. Thorntons seem to have upped their game recently, I was pretty impressed with their new packaging for their Continental truffle collection. It looks much more trendy and has a younger feel to it.
My favourite stall was one from Rabots Estate, the oldest chocolatier from Saint Lucia. We tasted raw, ground down cocoa beans which I had not tasted before this. After the initial crunch you get a whack of chocolate bitterness in the back of your throat, with all the flavor still swishing around in your mouth after you’ve eaten them. Rabots also had little cups of chocolate tea which again, I have never tasted or heard of before. I reckon both of these would make great novelty gifts for Christmas (please do not be reading this mum). Interestingly, Rabots is now owned by the original founders of Hotel Chocolat, who bought the chocolate estate five years ago. Five years on the owners have rejuvinised the chocolate estate, planting thousands of cacao trees and reaching out to other cacao growers on the island of Saint Lucia, encouraging ethical trade of cacao.
choosing chocolate
Throughout the afternoon we also tasted chocolate with flavours such as rose, blackcurrant and earl gray. Hotel Chocolat (possibly my favourite chocolate shop) certainly did not disappoint with the amounts of free truffles they were handing out. Another highlight was stumbling across Chocri, which focuses on personalized premium chocolate. As my wise friend pointed out to me “personalisation is the future Rachael,” and they seem to have developed this USP pretty well. At Chocri you can create your own chocolate bar from over 100 toppings, and each bar is handmade. Their sample of warm chocolate with a pick of toppings was truly tummy warming and you could taste how high quality the chocolate was. If you type in the following voucher code: chocriuk, you get £5 off until the end of December 2010.
All in all, the Chocolate Unwrapped show was a very pleasant way to spend Saturday afternoon and I imagine I was incredibly close to falling into a diabetic coma when I left. Bring on Chocolate Unwrapped 2011 I say.
{ 0 comments }