Answering your questions

You may have heard me on the Zoe podcast last week, and we’d like to say a huge thanks to the Zoe team for helping so many people to discover craft chocolate. Whether you’ve come to us via Zoe, a virtual tasting, the website, etc one request – PLEASE, PLEASE ASK US QUESTIONS! As we say at all our tastings, all questions are good and welcome. You can just hit reply to this and I’ll try to reply in person too.

To stimulate a few more questions, we thought it might be fun to reiterate a few of the benefits, delights and insider tips to savouring craft chocolate.

WHAT CRAFT CHOCOLATE IS ALL ABOUT …

1. Savouring is a unique human delight, and craft chocolate is the best way we know to explain and experience this. Craft Chocolate literally melts on your tongue and dramatically showcases the amazing complexities and length of flavour in chocolate. Try it. Break off a small piece, hold your nose for 10 seconds and then release it. Breathe and be amazed (see here for more). And no, your pets can’t detect flavour in their mouths (see here for more)
2. … and then do this with a different bar. You literally can taste the difference. Pro-Tip – always have two bars to compare (and that’s why in your first subscription box you have the branded cocoa runners craft envelope; use it to store your unfinished bars)
3. … and SHARE with family, partners and friends. Use the “flavour wave” to help you figure out what sensations, tastes, textures and flavours you are experiencing. And share the journey that you are experiencing. You’ll learn not just to articulate what you like, but gain insights from others. “One plus One” in tasting really, really does make a whole lot “more than two”.
4. Give yourself a pat on the back. You are literally helping save the planet by “upgrading” to craft chocolate. Check out the footer below. Switching from mass produced confectionery to craft chocolate has an unparalleled environmental impact .. from worse than farmed fish and lamb to better than just about anything.
5. And continuing this theme, don’t worry (too much) about your next bath or shower. A bath requires 50-70 litres of water. An avocado requires 200 litres. A handful of almonds (think 50g) requires about 700 litres. One cocoa pod (which makes about one craft chocolate bar) requires a staggering 1,500 litres of water. Fortunately, craft chocolate is all about saving the rainforest so all this water is upcycled / recycled. Unfortunately, mass produced chocolate all too often involves deforestation (over 60% of the world’s chocolate comes from West Africa, and because of increasing demands on cocoa farmers, rainforest cover has fallen from over 40% to under 5%) and so water is sucked up from the water table. So we’ve a double whammy of deforestation and desertification too (again, see here for more) via mass produced chocolate and commodity cocoa.
6. You are also supporting farmers and cooperatives through ensuring they have long term contracts which pay them transparently and fairly for their high quality beans. With commodity cocoa, over 90% of West African farmers don’t receive the UN guidelines for a minimum income (US $2.50), instead they receive less than $1. So yes there is a problem with child labour, but NO Tony is not the answer – see here. Instead, let’s make sure farmers are properly compensated and supported with long term, transparent and fair contracts. We sell over 1000 bars from over 100 makers. And we are proud to know the farms and co-operatives where the beans for all these bars are sourced (we always try to list this, along with makers details, ingredients, tasting notes, etc. on the website)
7. Craft chocolate is also great for you; it contains all sorts of otherwise hard to obtain minerals, fibre and the amazing theobromine (for more, please see here). It doesn’t contain excessive SUGAR (again, see here). It’s not “marketing blah” (unlike RAW .. see here for my rant on this, and here for more on Craft Chocolate’s health benefits (and again, thanks to Tim, Sarah and Federica for their insights here)
8. Craft chocolate isn’t ultra processed (for more on what we mean by “ultra processing” in chocolate, see here). And it isn’t packed full of additives, preservatives, emulsifiers and the like (note: if you want to do a real deep dive into lecithins, and judging by a number of questions many of you do .. please see HERE and HERE; please note not all emulsifiers/lecithins are always bad)
9. Discover more! Literally wherever you go in the world there will be craft chocolate makers. Go and talk with them. And also try to visit cocoa farms. Their stories are inspiring. We’ve a map that, like chocopedia (our store of all blogs, articles, etc.) is very much a work in progress – but explore it here. And if you are a subscriber, one of the benefits is that we will try to hook you up with makers, farmers etc. wherever you go.
10. Enjoy your new habit. Figure out a new daily habit (after dinner)? Try to pair craft chocolate … it’s amazing at the end of the meal with coffee, tea or with wine (for more on pairings, see here). This literally is a habit that is good for you, good for farmers, and good for the planet. And it’s social – great with kids, partners, families. Everyone will thank you!

Above all, craft chocolate is FUN. It’s a daily treat and delightful ritual. You don’t need to give up on any of your guilty pleasures (as Sarah Berry said, that’s not a good place to start … ). But hopefully you’ll enjoy finding some new favourites to share and make some great new habits.

As you can hopefully see from the links in the above, we PASSIONATELY care about craft chocolate. So if you’ve a question, check out Chocopedia here. And/or write to us. If we don’t have an answer, we LOVE trying to find out more. For example: at a recent tasting I was flummoxed by the wonderful question “why does my favourite bar taste differently on different days?. I’m still not sure I have cracked this – but see HERE for some ideas. And spoiler alert, it’s more than vintages, moods, what else you’ve eaten .. it may also have a link to the moon.

Finally, please do come to an in person and/or virtual tasting (see here – -and we’ve announced more dates, including a few with wine). We also offer Masterclasses on Taste, Flavour, and Chocolate (see here). Plus we’d love to meet you at the Chocolate Fair at Fidelio in Farringdon on the 12th and 13th of October; it’s free to come and “meet the makers”, and there are a few tickets left for the (paid) talks and tastings – again see here.

As ever, thanks for your support (and questions) and hope to see you in person or virtually soon.

PS next week’s email is going to be on memory; how you can learn to remember flavours and why meeting makers in person can really help here. Any thoughts, or specific questions, do email (admission: I’m a bit old school, so not great on Instagram, TikTok, etc.)