Introducing Levy

From the Northern Land that brought us Moomin, we are pleased to welcome Levy, “the tiniest and most uncompromising chocolate factory in Finland”.

Founder Tom Jakobsson, stumbled into the world of single estate chocolate by a happy accident. In 2010, while working in advertising and graphic design,  he came across a video online about Brooklyn-based chocolate makers Mast Brothers. Inspired by what he had seen, he realised you didn’t need a huge factory and multimillion pound machinery to make truly delicious chocolate. In fact quite the opposite is true – in chocolate, as in life, simplicity is often best. Levy’s chocolate contains only two ingredients: organic cocoa beans and organic cane sugar.

In 2011 Levy was born, and its first bars released in the summer of 2012 – for as any of our makers can tell you, it takes time to create great chocolate.

The dried and fermented beans are transported to Levy’s factory in Helsinki. Here, Tom and his team hand clean the beans in Finland before roasting. For each batch of beans, they carefully adjust roasting temperature and time according to bean type, origin and desired outcome, to ensure the beans release their full potential flavour.

The beans are then cracked and winnowed to separate the husk and nibs (the part used in chocolate). The nibs are then ground in a granite grinder. It is at this point that Tom adds in his chocolate’s only other ingredient – organic cane sugar. The combined nibs and sugar, known as cocoa liquor is then conched for up to three days. Then to further enhance the flavour the solidified chocolate is aged for one to three months.

The result of all this hard work? Levi’s Madagascar 71%

This marvellous Madagascan bar is quite distinctive.  Instead of the waves of berries you may expect from Madagascan cacao, we discovered something quite different.  Break off a piece and let it melt on your tongue.  An earthiness emanates, with rich liquorice notes rising through the bar.  You’re transported to an exotic faraway island with bursts of banana and then an almost tropical, fruity finish.

Try it today >>