Craft Chocolate from Ukraine: Introducing Stranger Chocolate
One of our mantras at Cocoa Runners is that “craft chocolate tastes better, it’s better...
Print / PDFOne of our mantras at Cocoa Runners is that “craft chocolate tastes better, it’s better...
Print / PDFOne of our mantras at Cocoa Runners is that “craft chocolate tastes better, it’s better for you, it’s better for the farmers, and it’s better for the planet“.
But it’s also a great way to explore the world. And this week we are delighted, and humbled, to be launching our first Ukrainian chocolate maker; ‘Stranger‘, the creation of Tetyana and Ruslan, and their children Anya and Matvii.
Stranger was started in late 2016 by accident. Tetyana and Ruslan are professional designers, and when they tried to help their daughter on a university project they ended up reverse engineering not just the design but the very way that chocolate is crafted. They realised that if they roasted their own cocoa beans, as opposed to merely repackaging cocoa mass with lots of sugar and additives, they could create chocolate that tasted far better. In their own words:
“Our mission is to make a quality and tasty product from cocoa beans. We want to enjoy the taste of cocoa beans from different parts of our Earth. It is important for us that slave and child labor is not used in the process of growing and harvesting cocoa. The conditions for growing and caring for cocoa are also very important to us”.
What’s really extraordinary is that Tetyana and Ruslan are continuing to craft (and even winning awards for) their bars in, to put it mildly, challenging circumstances! Somehow they are still able to import beans, run their small factory, and find a way to deliver their bars to us here in the UK, despite the appalling war in Ukraine.
They are also sending bars to Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines, which adds poignancy to these bars.
We’ve managed to import a small number of their 70% 50g bars from four regions – and they provide a great way to delight in very different and distinct origins:
We also have a small number of their 100% Öko Caribe bars, which really are fantastically long, with no harsh astringent notes.
So if you want to celebrate some bars that don’t just taste great, but show some real dedication and have a real sense of history, please join us in supporting Tetyana and Raslan.
We’ve also assembled a gift box where we’ve added a £5 donation from you, that we will also match, to support a charity selected by Tetyana and Raslan.
For every box you purchase, we’ll send £10 to a charity, supporting the Ukrainian people and army. The charity set up by well-known Ukrainian TV presenter and comedian, Serhiy Dmytrovych Prytula; The Prytula Foundation.
And I’d like to leave the final words to Stranger themselves:
“We really need peace in our country and victory. Wherever the war is, it is very scary. Now, in the times of development of the whole world, it is not clear how this could happen. Why are people and many children dying? It is very scary and very sad.
We are very grateful to everyone who supports Ukraine! Truth and goodness are on our side. And that’s the main thing. Let’s stand up and win!”
Thanks for your support.
Spencer
