Are you ready for another spectacular year of craft chocolate. We’ve been sending boxes of bean to bar chocolate around Australia for over 5 years now but 2021 was one of our best collections yet. We’ve been creating and planning over Summer and ready to make 2022 just as good if not better!
We’ve started the year with our 60th monthly bean to bar chocolate subscription box – an epic collection of bars from Tobago Estates (France), Crow & Moss (USA), Marou (Vietnam) and Atypic Chocolate (Melbourne).
Duane Dove was one of the first chocolate fanatics we ever met, in his superb craft chocolate shop in Stockholm, he showed us around, helped us choose from the spectacular collection then bid farewell as he headed off to run a rum and chocolate tasting on a parked cruise liner. At the time we didn’t full appreciate that he owned a cacao plantation and was partnering with one of the best chocolate makers in the world to have his cacao crafted into chocolate. It was a few years later we realised and tried his bars and they’ve been some favourites ever since. We’re sharing the Laura Dark Milk, 70% Dark and Buccoo reef (Laura + sea salt) bars with our subscribers this month.
Crow and Moss come to us all the way from the North of Michigan (USA). We knew when we first talked with Mike early last year that they would be delicious and a perfect fit for our subscription boxes. Two big ticks! Everyone is enjoying the Zorzal cacao, Dominican Republic or the Camino Verde, Ecuador bars. We had the pleasure of trying the rest of Mike’s creations and they are just as amazing – we will be bringing them all down-under as soon as we can.
It is just over 10 years since Alison and Chris went on holidays in Vietnam (it was amazing!) it’s also just over 10 years since Marou Chocolate was founded. Over the years they have made famous the amazing cacaos being cultivated around Vietnam. Extensive work with farmers and local promotion of chocolate has helped developed a now bustling local craft chocolate industry. We featured Marou in our first ever subscription box nearly 6 years ago, and a couple times since but we’re still working our way through their bars. This year most people are enjoying the Ba Ria 76%, flavoured bar fans the Kumquat dark and fans of milk chocolate the Ben Tre coconut bar.
Last and not least, we though it was appropriate to share the newly award winning bars from Atypic Chocolate. At the 2021 Academy of Chocolate awards, Atypic was one of two Australian chocolate makers to win medals, Gold for their Caramelized White Chocolate bars, Silver for the Vanuatu Milk and Bronze for the Solomon Island dark bar. This month we’re sharing the Solomon’s Dark, Vanuatu Milk and a few of Dark Caramel Brittle bars for the flavoured chocolate lovers. All their bars are stunning – the mould features the hot air balloon’s often seen floating over Melbourne, the sleeve features a street map of Melbourne & outer packaging the topography / vegetation of the cacao’s origin. Craft chocolate is an experience and it all adds up to special moment.
Our subscription is more than just a box of chocolate. This month we’ve started our first series of ‘meet the chocolate maker sessions’ our subscribers and join a virtual chat with some of the chocolate makers we’re featuring this month – ask any burning questions, maybe taste their bars and chat about their inspiration and impact. It’s just one of the ways we’re building connections within the craft chocolate community. We’ve got more exciting things happening but you’ll have to join our subscription to find out about them!