{"id":10026,"date":"2017-07-05T17:42:44","date_gmt":"2017-07-06T00:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/?p=10026"},"modified":"2023-05-19T18:08:26","modified_gmt":"2023-05-20T01:08:26","slug":"bean-to-barbie-chocolate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/outsidechocolate\/bean-to-barbie-chocolate\/","title":{"rendered":"Bean-to-barbie chocolate"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the latest International Chocolate Salon chocolate bar judging, I found some awesome bean-to-bar chocolate that I have to share. It\u2019s not SFBA-local, and it is pricey, but it\u2019s a great splurge for yourself or an impressive gift for a chocolate lover you love. And you can buy it here in the Bay Area.<\/p>\n

\"Zokoko
Zokoko bean-to-bar packaging is designed to impress<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Zokoko Artisan Chocolate<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is a bean-to-bar chocolate maker located outside Sydney, Australia. They do single-origin and blended bars with beans from some unusual places. For the 2017 Chocolate Bar competition, they submitted 3 bars: 2 single-origin and one blended.<\/p>\n

Luxury chocolate packaging<\/h2>\n

All 3 entries are attractive bars before you even open them up, especially the single-origin ones. I haven\u2019t seen nicer packaging for a chocolate bar.<\/p>\n

The single-origins are large bars (85G\/3oz.) packaged in substantial boxes with magnetic snap closures. The boxes are dark brown with the logo embossed in gold foil, and a square info label giving the particulars about the origin and cacao amount.\u00a0They are absolutely gorgeous.<\/p>\n

When you open a Zokoko single-origin bar package, the gorgeousness continues. The bar is wrapped in gold foil. It fills the box so completely, that they include a small ribbon attached to the spine and laid out under the bar with a bit hanging out, so you can pull the ribbon and lift the bar out of the pack without any fuss.<\/p>\n

\"Zokoko
Zokoko\u2019s single-origin bars include a ribbon tab to help you get the bar out of the packaging<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Impressive chocolate<\/h2>\n

The bar itself looks impressive: It has a nice thickness, and it\u2019s a beautiful deep brown. It\u2019s embossed with the Zokoko logo and scored for breaking into 7 pieces. That represents a little under 0.5 ounce each, so those are big tastes, AKA the recommended daily dose of chocolate.<\/p>\n

Of the 2 single-origin bars submitted, I liked best the 72% Tranquilidad that uses \u201cwild harvested cacao\u201c from Bolivia. It was a little soft, but broke nicely. The first taste is very fruity, becoming citrusy. It has a nice tang and a wonderfully smooth texture with a light but lingering aftertaste. It feels like a luxury chocolate bar. As one of my fellow CBTB tasters said, \u201cWhat\u2019s inside matches the package.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another one of our tasters raved about it: \u201cIt\u2019s a very attractive bar. You can tell that it\u2019s very high quality chocolate. It tastes very good; it has some coffee notes and a slight bitterness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zokoko\u2019s site describes the taste as containing \u201cnotes of honey and dried fruit with balanced cocoa flavour and a luxurious, delicate finish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Island chocolate<\/h2>\n

The other bean-to-bar entry was just as nice and a close second in my opinion: The 78% Guadalcanal uses beans from the Solomon Islands and was another pretty bar. Since I\u2019ve never tried chocolate that originated in the Solomon Islands, I was very intrigued.<\/p>\n

The bar had a very crisp break, which was to be expected from the higher cacao content, but it melted nicely too. Often, the higher cacao bars are harder and take too long to melt in your mouth: you have to chew them to get them to start melting. That was not the case with this bar. It started to melt quickly, filling my mouth with a\u00a0strong liqueur\/raisiny flavor. The aftertaste reminds me of really good chocolate ice cream \u2014 light, but distinctively chocolate.<\/p>\n

One of our tasters said the taste was like a dried fruit bar almost, and the other taster declared this bar the\u00a0best one: \u201cIt\u2019s fruity with a nice texture and crunch. It breaks cleanly, and is very smooth.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also suggested that it would make a good baking chocolate.\u00a0That may be possible, I don\u2019t know, but it would make for some expensive baked goods. We found the bars locally at Chocolate Covered<\/a><\/strong> for $18 a piece. That is probably the highest price I have ever paid for a chocolate bar, but these are totally splurge-worthy.<\/p>\n

\"Zokoko
Zokoko\u2019s Goddess Milk Chocolate bar is lovely<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Food of the goddesses<\/h2>\n

Chocolate Covered also carries the rest of the Zokoko line, including the blended bar we tried in the International Chocolate Salon judging, Goddess Milk Chocolate.<\/p>\n

All of Zokoko\u2019s blended and flavored bars are titled Goddess. The packages feature women-centric wrap-around illustrations that relate to the bar flavor.<\/p>\n

Like the single-origin bars, the packaging is very attractive and gift appropriate, though not as luxurious. The packages are simple cardboard, not little boxes, and the inside wrapper is clear plastic. The bar is smaller (65g\/2.29oz.), but it is still embossed with the Zokoko name, and the illustrations are very pretty. These bars are also cheaper, $11 each at Chocolate Covered.<\/p>\n

I think the Goddess Milk Chocolate is worth the price: The bar breaks nicely, and it\u2019s a good milk chocolate. It\u2019s not too sweet and has a nice mouthfeel \u2014 very smooth. I don\u2019t care for a lot of milk chocolates these days, but this is one I can recommend. It tastes like quality chocolate. It\u2019s very enjoyable.<\/p>\n

My fellow CBTB taster said, \u201cThe nice packaging and logo set high expectations.\u00a0I thought I was being set up for a let-down, but this is the rare milk chocolate that I would hide from other people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our other taster thought the packaging was very pretty and thought this was a worthy milk chocolate too: \u201cI like the crunch \u2014 a lot of times milk chocolate is soft. And this has a nice mouthfeel. It\u2019s good tasting, with no off flavors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chocolate walkabout<\/h2>\n

Unfortunately, Zokoko doesn\u2019t sell from their website to the U.S., so you have to find a local reseller. Lucky us SFBA-ers, we have Chocolate Covered<\/a> in SF on 24th St. in Noe Valley \u2014 home of over 1,000 chocolate bar varieties \u2014 which carries Zokoko.<\/p>\n

If you should be traveling to Sydney, Australia, you could visit Zokoko\u2019s chocolate factory outside Sydney to buy some for yourself. From the description on their website, it sounds like it could be a nice day-trip: They have their own cafe at the factory where you can eat baked goods made with their chocolate while watching the inner workings of their factory through big picture windows. And they are located near Blue Mountains National Park, home of the Three Sisters rock formation.<\/p>\n

Zokoko was the find of the International Chocolate Salon chocolate bar tasting: They really know what they are doing. I hope their chocolate becomes more widely available so more people can enjoy them too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lovely chocolate gift from Down Under<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":10073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,13,169],"tags":[678,282,575,22,923,922],"class_list":["post-10026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chocolateroundtheworld","category-outsidechocolate","category-reviews","tag-australia","tag-bean-to-bar","tag-bolivia","tag-milk-chocolate","tag-solomon-islands","tag-zokoko-artisan-chocolate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10026"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38615,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10026\/revisions\/38615"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}