Tag: chocolate bar

The crew at Ocelot Chocolate is doing some truly wonderful work on the east coast of Scotland in the small city of Dundee. The three bars we began stocking last spring are delicious. And this new arrival took me by delightful surprise!

Like my friend Shawn Askinosie, founder of the amazing Askinosie Chocolate, all of Ocelot’s products are “bean-to-bar”—they work directly with farmers to facilitate the growing and fermenting of better-quality cacao, along with higher quality of life for the growers and their families. Farmers earn a living, you and I get chocolate we love, the land is cared for, and everyone comes out ahead. In the context of what I’ve written about apricots as the symbol for dignity and democracy, Ocelot’s work is a lovely “bowl of apricots” we can appreciate and admire! The folks at Ocelot work to advance the cause of women farmers, protect the native rainforest, and craft compelling, delicious, high-quality dark chocolate. And their packaging is all sustainable, non-toxic, and compostable—including the clear cellophane.

Unlike most of our other craft producers, Ocelot is bringing beans from the country of Congo, more specifically, from Virunga National Park. The majority of cacao from the region that gets to chocolate makers today is made for the mass market, but the Congolese cacao here is anything but. It’s exceptional at every level. Great flavor and also a great story. Part of the National Park’s mission is to provide safety for some of the world’s last Mountain Gorillas. It’s also to offer a safe space for farmers: the Park “seeks to build cacao supply chains in eastern Congo that protect farmers from the effects of armed conflict, helping them get their cacao to market without the fear of violence.”

The story of cacao in the Congo is, in a sense, a good example of turning the terrible into something far more positive. It was brought there in the latter years of the 19th century by the exceedingly cruel Belgian King Leopold. It is an example of what can go wrong when an unchecked autocrat takes control of a country. Leopold never even went to Congo, but throughout his life, he created extractive and abusive working conditions for Congolese people, all used to enhance his own wealth. The primary 19th-century colonial crop was rubber, and Congolese people were forced to work on the plantations solely for the benefit of Leopold’s bank account. When slavery was banned by Brussels in 1889 and 1890, Leopold worked around the restriction by requiring Native peoples to sell their harvests only to the state, i.e., his own business.

In the process, Leopold amassed a huge personal fortune. Atrocities committed in his commercial interest were beyond my ability to imagine. Roughly half the Native population was killed during Leopold’s rule. Since Leopold was given the land personally, it was not controlled by the state at the time. Work practices and treatment of the Indigenous people were terrible. Over time, the Belgian state managed to buy back the land from its own corrupt and greedy king in order to restrict the worst practices. Finally, in 1908, he was forced to sell the land back to the Belgian state.

When the Congo gained independence back in 1960, things began to go in more positive directions, and the quality of the cacao and the coffee both have continually gotten better. Today, the Virunga National Park’s farmers are an uplifting regenerative success story.

The Lemon Oil Chocolate, as I wrote about, is surprisingly delicious! Creamy from the olive oil in a way that sort of resembles dark milk chocolate, but instead of dairy, the Ocelot Lemon Oil bar has the beauty of really great dark chocolate, with aroma and flavor of the lemon olive oil to back into the mix. Part of what makes it special is the quality of the lemon olive oil. It comes from the De Carlo family in Puglia. The family has been working with olive trees on the land for over five centuries. Their oil comes from especially old trees, which means lower yield but more complex flavors! In this case, the combo is wonderful!

Swing by the Candy Store soon and score a taste of this terrific new arrival!

Score your square

P.S. We currently have 7 other flavors from Ocelot as well: Cinnamon Swirl, Sea Salt, Buckwheat, Black Cherry, Blood Orange, Femme/Milk Chocolate, and Olive Oil.

The Candy Store scores big with this amazing new arrival

I’ll confess to being a bit concerned when we began buying chocolate bars from Mirzam in Dubai many years ago. I mean, chocolate made in a desert capital? Over the years, I came to realize though that I had nothing at all to be concerned about—the Mirzam chocolates have been uniformly excellent. In fact, they have become some of my favorites over the last five or six years! Each new arrival seems especially special, so good that I have a hard time imagining that Kathy Johnston and the rest of the Mirzam crew can top it. And yet, time after time, they do. This new Double Orange Dark Chocolate bar, which came to town for the first time a few weeks ago, is no exception. I’m already on my third one in three weeks!

The bottom line is that Kathy Johnston and the Mirzam team are, quite simply, crafting some of the best bean-to-bar chocolate around. The flavors are lovely, complex, and compelling. And the artwork on the labels, created by the remarkable Romanian artist, Aitch—is equally lovely! Of this new creation, Kathy shares:

I had called this one, while it was under development, the “Double Orange Bar,” because it has the crispy orange toffee pieces, as well as the candied navel oranges that we sell separately. The origin of making it happen was after a collaboration request from the team at Z&Z, a Palestinian restaurant/bakery in Washington D.C. Their father comes from the town of Yaffa, which is famous for its connection to oranges; and so this was the place where I started to think about the recipe. It was originally created as a short-term pop-up kinda recipe; but I love it so much. I love oranges with chocolate, I think they are deeeeelicious together!

The Double Orange Dark Chocolate bar is made with a blend of a couple of cacao origins. It has Indian beans from the south of the country, which are known for their complex, fruit-forward, nutty flavor, and Dominican cacao, which is regularly recognized for being beautifully balanced and quite creamy. Add in the crispy orange toffee and gild the citrus lily by adding bits of Mirzam’s dark chocolate-covered oranges, and man oh man, do you have a magical bar.

Swing by the Candy Store soon to score some of this special chocolate. Complex flavors, great balance between the 62% dark chocolate and the orange, and a lovely finish. The label, like everything Mirzam does, is as amazing as the chocolate inside! It’s a great way to make any chocolate lover’s day!

Add a bar to your bag

Really good chocolate made from raw cacao in the world’s happiest place

One place that we don’t—yet—take you on a Zingerman’s Food Tour is Finland. I forecast that down the road, there may well be one. About a year ago, BBC Radio reported that “for seven consecutive years, Finland has been named the happiest country in the world, followed closely by its Nordic neighbours Denmark and Iceland.”

While we’re thinking about making our way to Helsinki to try out the terrific local food scene, here’s an easy opportunity to try a really tasty artisan offering. Made in the city of Sisu (the almost mystical Finnish term that is something akin to “inner strength”), Goodio is a craft bean-to-bar chocolate with a really good brand name. Goodio was founded a decade ago by designer Jukka Peltola, who also developed games at Rovio, the company responsible for Angry Birds. After a creative career in technology and entertainment, Peltola came to food through a personal journey for better health. He started by thoughtfully challenging himself to answer the question: “What if there was a food brand you could trust?” Goodio was his answer.

The chocolate line was designed around the principles of sustainability, well-being, and supply chain transparency, with the idea of incorporating Nordic-inspired ingredients and flavors into artisan chocolate bars. All the bars are made with organic raw cacao, which means they’re especially high in antioxidants. They sweeten the bars with raw coconut sugar, which also gives a subtle difference in the flavor profile from the majority of chocolates made with cane sugar.

The Dark Chocolate 71% is my top pick. It’s made with hard-to-find Nacional heirloom cacao from Peru. Highly prized for many years, the already rare Nacional beans suffered tremendously in a blight back in 1916. They were thought to have essentially disappeared until some trees were found growing wild in the jungle. From that small source, the bean has been brought back. It has a creamy, non-astringent flavor.

We also have a Finnish Wild Blueberry Chocolate—in a great way, the blueberries are present in the flavor, but chocolate remains what you taste first. We also have their lovely, lighter caramelized Finnish Rosemary Chocolate, very creamy Coconut Milk Chocolate, and Dark Chocolate with Sea Salt. All are vegan, gluten-free, and very good. Each, in its own Finnish way, is wonderful! Eat some and see if, indeed, a small bit of happiness doesn’t follow.

Available at the Candy Store, inside Zingerman’s Coffee Company, on Plaza Drive!