Silver for Europe - ICA - 2021-22
This special batch is stoneground with cherryleaf tea. An ume vinegar, salt-fermented cherry blossom adds a finishing flourish of sakura seduction. For flavour think green tea, but with a hint of cherry. We wanted to see how it paired with our Palo Blanco cacao and we found it was a perfect match. We made a small amount of bars like this a few months ago and due to its popularity we made an extra batch, then another, then hustled last minute to add an image to the print run and welcome the bar into our core range.
The base chocolate for this bar is our multi-award winning 65% coconut dark milk chocolate made with Gran Palo Blanco cacao from Piura, Peru. This chocolate has natural malty and chocolatey notes and a hint of stoned fruits like plum. The light fruity acidity helps balance out the flavours. It is made with coconut milk to soften the bar, but not overwhelmingly so, the coconut is very understated.
If you would also like to try this award winning chocolate on its own without inclusions, you can find it here:
Allergen information: contains no dairy, wheat, gluten, or soy (nut-free, dairy-free, soy-free, gluten-free). Made in a facility that uses nuts and soy. Vegan friendly.
Each bar is 56gr/ 2oz.
- Added insights from EG - certified cacao and chocolate taster IICCT.
Posted @withregram • @eglazener
England's @solkiki_chocolatemaker makes the Solkiki Cherryleaf Tea 65 as a sibling to its Cherry Leaf Latte 39 White Chocolate bar.
This vegan dark milk chocolate bar won a Silver medal in "Milk chocolate bars with an infusion or flavouring" @chocawards 2021-22 European, Middle Eastern and African Bean-to-Bar competition.
The cacao in this bar is the special Gran Palo Blanco grown by farmer Juan De La Cruz Rivera Olemar in Piura, Peru. The bar has a nice melt into a smooth texture & creamy mouthfeel. The tannins in the green tea infusion make the mouthfeel seem the very tiniest bit dusty. The tea is Cherryleaf tea, a green tea with added sakura (Japanese cherry) leaves popular in Japan. Solkiki then adorns each bar with a dried, umeboshi-salt-pickled sakura blossom.
The chocolate already has floral notes on its own, & the grassy yet sweet, mildly citrusy, & very slightly astringent notes of the green tea & the light cherry blossom & rose/plum-like floral notes of the tea infusion are such a perfect match for it. This bar would be stunning visually & a delight to eat if that were the end. But it's not.
That salt-pickled cherry blossom (you get one per bar) suddenly lifts the entire bar to a plane of visual beauty, deliciousness, & sensory pleasure. The salt elevates the flavors, & the blossom's crunch adds an intriguing textural note. In addition, the blossom's subtle yet profound floral notes lift the floral notes temporarily just above the herbaceous tea notes, drawing on & building the flavors from the sakura leaves in the tea. Then the salt draws you back into the delightful & creamy base chocolate again, this time disguising the well-balanced tannins from the Cherryleaf tea until they reappear in the finish & aftertaste.
The alchemists of flavor have done it again. A delightful bar of chocolate that will leave you wanting more.
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