Friday, January 15, 2010

Rococo Bee Bars

Rococo Bee BarsRococo is a small chocolatier and chocolate maker based in London. They grow their cacao in Grenada, in a partnership with the Grenada Chocolate Company. They grow organic Trinitario beans which are then turned into bars and fine chocolates at founder Chantal Coady’s space in London.

The design of the packaging and candy itself is charming, quaint and distinctive from other chocolatiers. The flavors she employs are also a distinctive palette of aromatics, spices and florals.

The chocolate is sold primarily in Great Britain, though there are a couple of shops that have mostly the bars in North America. When I was in San Francisco last time I found the line of Bee Bars at Miette Confiserie. The bars are expensive, so I opted for the petite versions - these are only 20 grams each but cost $3.50 (that works out to $39.50 a pound). The bars are about three inches long, so really just one portion.

The packages are beguiling with reproductions of antique French chocolate mold images lined up and printed in pastel colors like purple and olive green in the case of my bars and navy blue, pink and orange for other bars. I picked up Organic Plain Lavender (dark), Organic Milk 37% Cocoa and Organic White Cardamom.

Rococo Milk Chocolate

I was a bit surprised when I got home and opened my boxes that there is no inner wrapper. No foil, no cellophane, no overwrap for the box or even glue or tape for the tabs.

Still, my bar was in exquisite condition - glossy and beautifully molded. The bee bar, my guess, is named for the mold that has a little bee with outstretched wings on each segment. There are no honey ingredients.

The Milk 37% Cocoa Bee Bar is quite simple. It’s a little softer than a dark chocolate, though certainly doesn’t bend like a Cadbury bar.

It has the light scent of milk and sugar and a little musky hint or malt. It’s quite dark for a milk which appeals to me, though it still has that light cooling effect on the tongue that’s common in milk chocolate. The melt is silky and smooth though on the sticky side because of the sugar and 17% milk content. The chocolate notes are overshadowed by the milk for the most part, but it’s still a great texture and the fresh dairy flavors are a highlight.

Rococo Dark Chocolate with Lavender

The Lavender Bee Bar is made from 65% cacao and uses no vanilla, instead it’s organic lavender essential oil that gives this bar its pop. The fact that they use oil instead of flowers is different here. I’ve had other bars that use whole flowers to flavor the chocolate and while that does a nice job of imparting complex flavors, lavender buds really aren’t that tasty or smooth.

The dark chocolate is smooth, a bit dry and bitter. The lavender is woodsy with a hint of pine and a whiff of aromatics like menthol. I like the flavor of lavender, it reminds me a lot of rosemary - both go well with all kinds of chocolate.

Rococo White Chocolate with Cardamom

The bar that was most compelling to me was the White Cardamom Bee Bar. This one was wrapped - both in foil and then a paper-overwrap. The mold of the bar is also slightly different - it’s four sections instead of six.

The bar is beautiful, a light and creamy yellow with specks of spice. The ingredients list 28% cacao (that’d be cocoa butter) and 22% milk.

I love cardamom and love tasting it in candy. This bar utilizes it perfectly, it’s like a rich rice pudding. It’s a little sweet, but the deep nutty flavors of the cardamom, which is kind of like nutmeg, coriander and saffron all in one. I could eat this bar regularly. I wouldn’t mind a little vanilla in it, to give it some bourbon notes, but this is fabulous as it is.

Other flavor combinations I’m eager to try are Gold, Frankincense & Myrrh; Arabic Spices; Basil & Persian Lime; Orange & Geranium and Peppered Mint. For web orders in the US, it appears that Miss Del’s General Store in Clarksdale, Mississippi. At these prices they’re certainly not an everyday indulgence, more of a way to explore the world of flavors.

Related Candies

  1. My Bay Area Candy Adventure
  2. Boules de Miel (balls of honey)
  3. The Apothecary’s Garden: Herbs (and some Bees)
  4. Recchiuti
  5. Nougat de Montelimar
  6. Green and Black’s White Chocolate
Name: Organic Bee Bars: Milk Chocolate, Lavender Chocolate and Cardamom White
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Rococo Chocolates
Place Purchased: Miette Confiserie (San Francisco)
Price: $3.50 each
Size: .7 ounces
Calories per ounce: unknown
Categories: Chocolate, White Chocolate, United Kingdom, Fair Trade, Organic

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:31 am Tracker Pixel for Entry    

Comments
  1. How funny, my friend and I just made Rococo a definite for our upcoming trip to London next month! I’m definitely getting the cardamon, and I love that the ones you want to try are exactly the ones I’d written down to look out for! Great minds… raspberry

    Comment by Hannah on 1/16/10 at 3:46 pm #
  2. The white chocolate-cardamom bar sounds awesome…and I’m not usually a white chocolate fan. I tried an assortment of their truffles when I was last in London, but they weren’t my favorite. (Too many floral varieties for my taste.)

    Comment by Elizabeth on 1/17/10 at 6:14 pm #
  3. I visited Rococo and The Chocolate Society when in London for our 25th Anniversary 8 years ago. I don’t remember what I bought but I went back for more after trying a small amount. I loved the shop.

    Comment by Diana on 1/18/10 at 5:32 am #
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