International Women’s Day – Women Makers

To highlight the amazing work of women in craft chocolate this International Women’s Day, we’ve put together this box to showcase some absolutely amazing women chocolate makers.

Butterfly – Kokoa Kamili, Tanzania, Dark Milk 58%

Butterfly was originally founded in 2003 as a boutique patisserie after Ebru İpekçi decided that she wanted to bring world-class food products to Turkey. After consulting their cookbooks and producing delicious patisseries for quite some time, Butterfly began to fall under the spell of chocolate – today, they sell their handmade chocolates in their five stores in Istanbul, as well as on their website.

Dormouse – Madagascar, Toasted White

Dormouse is a one-woman bean-to-bar craft chocolate maker, established in Manchester in 2014. Isobel, the founder, started her chocolate journey as a student temp at a luxury chocolate shop, before becoming a bean-to-bar chocolatier and eventually investing in her own equipment. She crafts and hand-wraps every bar herself, and has built a strong reputation for her experimental and limited edition bars.

Dormouse has created a rich toasted white chocolate using Madagascan cocoa butter. To create this particular bar, Dormouse has toasted the milk powder to give the chocolate an extra caramelised flavour. The dark blonde bar has a soft, fudgy texture. We noted plenty of sweet caramel, and touches of muscovado and malt. This bar is undoubtedly a sweet treat with a sophisticated caramac-like quality.

Cocoa Retreat – Mono Bravo, Esmeraldas Ecuador, Dark Chocolate 68%

Cocoa Retreat is a one woman operation producing small batch craft chocolate. Oenone Thomas is a chocolate maker with an incredible sense for good flavours, using her expertise to roast to perfection and create wonderful recipes for each variety of cacao bean.

This single-origin, micro batch Dark 68% bar is formed of organic Nacional Venezolano Amarillo cacao, which has been awarded a spot in the World Top 50 Cacao of Excellence. Expect gorgeous notes of treacle toffee, baked red fruits and nuts to linger on the tongue.

Feitoria do Cacao – Zorzal, Dominican Republic, Dark 72%

Sue and Tomoko are the pair behind Feitoria do Cacao, based near Porto in Portugal. They carry out every step of the chocolate-making process by hand, crafting bars in tiny (and delicious) micro-batches.

No nutritional information available for this product.

*Allergen advice: We directly import, and purchase, all products from independent makers and have these shipped by our partner warehouse (which is not certified allergen-free), and so we cannot guarantee that any product will be allergen-free. Even where an allergen is not listed, products may have been produced, shipped, or stored in facilities which handle allergens.

If you would like further information about a specific product, please contact us on [email protected] or contact the maker directly.