{"id":9510,"date":"2017-02-03T18:17:48","date_gmt":"2017-02-04T02:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/?p=9510"},"modified":"2024-10-14T14:03:56","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T21:03:56","slug":"a-spoonful-of-chocolate-helps-the-medicine-go-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/local-chocolate\/a-spoonful-of-chocolate-helps-the-medicine-go-down\/","title":{"rendered":"A spoonful of chocolate helps the medicine go down"},"content":{"rendered":"

Socola Chocolatier<\/strong><\/a>, creator of memorable chocolates like Dangerous Durian and Flying Rooster Sriracha truffles, has a unique new collection to celebrate 2017\u2019s Lunar New Year: Inspired by traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), Socola TCM Chocolates are a set of 4 flavor combos representing the 4 seasons and infused with botanicals.<\/p>\n

\"Socola
Socola\u2019s Traditional Chinese Medicine chocolates (clockwise from top left): Winter, Summer, Spring, Fall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Each combination starts with dark chocolate ganache, because \u2014 as we all know \u2014 there are health benefits in eating dark chocolate<\/a>. Then different seasonal botanicals known for their own health benefits are\u00a0added to each\u00a0ganache for an extra\u00a0boost.\u00a0Finally, each piece is covered in\u00a0a dark chocolate shell with a hand-applied decoration made from the botanicals.<\/p>\n

For example, Summer is a blend of\u00a0matcha green tea, known for being full of antioxidants, and fresh mint, which aids\u00a0digestion. A dash of matcha and white chocolate marks the piece. Spring adds rose, honey and bee pollen to the dark chocolate\u00a0to boost\u00a0your immune system and maybe help in the romance department.<\/p>\n

But none of those ingredients seem like TCM to me. I\u2019ve made and drunk TCM brews myself when they were prescribed by my acupuncturist. The ingredients hand-packed in brown paper bags were not recognizable to me, except in a\u00a0dried-sticks-seeds-powders way, and the long simmering process smelled up the house \u2014 definitely not in a minty or flowery way. And the taste \u2014 strictly a hold-your-nose-until-you\u2019ve-drunk-it-all flavor that required a palate-cleansing chaser immediately afterwards before I wanted\u00a0to breathe again. It was all \u201cgood for you,\u201d but not good tasting.<\/p>\n

Chocolate to the rescue<\/h2>\n

Since I couldn\u2019t imagine how the flavors I remember (bitter dirt is the closest I can come to\u00a0describing them) would work in chocolate, I asked Wendy Lieu, co-founder and chief chocolatier of Socola, how this box came to be.<\/p>\n

She told me that the chocolates were developed in collaboration with 5Yina<\/a>, a skincare company based in Richmond, CA. 5Yina makes a seasonal skincare line based on traditional Chinese medicine. They use TCM-infused oils for their products.<\/p>\n

Wendy met one of the founders of 5Yina, Angela Chau, when she presented her with the 2016 Monarch Leadership Award from the Pacific Asian American Women Bay Area Coalition<\/a>. The awards are presented biannually to \u201crecognize emerging API (Asian Pacific Island) women leaders.\u201d Wendy won the award in 2012, and is also involved in their Catalyst Fund (more later).<\/p>\n

\u201cI presented Angela with the award, and got to know her and her company,\u201d Wendy said. \u201cAfterwards, Angela asked me if I would be interested in creating chocolates using TCM that 5Yina\u00a0could give to their customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up taking TCM \u2014 black soups and herbal remedies \u2014 when I was sick. I never thought about those tastes for chocolates. It sounded interesting, but I wasn\u2019t sure.<\/p>\n

\u201c5Yina\u2019s skin care line is focused on every season, using botanical ingredients from\u00a0each season,\u201d Wendy explained, so \u201cAngela and Ervina (Wu, 5Yina’s co-founder)\u00a0came up with lists of seasonal ingredients used in TCM. I worked on the combinations. We went through several revisions before we settled on each seasonal piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

A pinch of this, a dash of that<\/h2>\n

While Wendy has a long familiarity with taking TCM, she wasn\u2019t familiar with all of the items on the lists: \u201cThey told me what elements would go with each season \u2014 it was a list of herbs, powders, tinctures, and other things.\u201d<\/p>\n

She had to do some research and experimentation. For the Spring piece, she explained, \u201cI came up with rose and honey, I\u2019d seen that before; but I added bee pollen, which was new.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Spring piece is a very nice chocolate. It has a small\u00a0sprinkle of bee pollen on top. The first flavor is sweet chocolate, with a nectar-like flavor like honeysuckle. The rose flavor comes at the end; it\u2019s light, not a heavy perfume-y aftertaste like rose flavoring can be. Wendy explained that she used dried roses, not an extract. \u201cI treated it like a tea, so it’s subtle, mild.\u201d<\/p>\n

The piece that is most evocative of TCM is Autumn. It\u2019s a blend of\u00a0chrysanthemum, osmanthus & goji. Goji berries are commonly used in TCM to temper the bitterness, and the Autumn piece has a dried berry on top as well as goji berry infused in the cream. It\u2019s a different kind of sweet than more common dried fruits. One bite and its medicinal flavor brought back memories of TCM teas, but instead of gag-inducing herbs, the other flavors are mildly floral (from the chrysanthemum and osmanthus) and chocolate!<\/p>\n

I definitely prefer this to any TCM I have brewed in my life. And the health benefits according to 5Yina include\u00a0repairing oxidative damage (chrysanthemum), skin rejuvenation\u00a0(osmanthus), and\u00a0long life, better kidney function\u00a0and brighter eyes (goji).<\/p>\n

\u201cChrysanthemum and goji were familiar flavors,\u201d Wendy said, \u201cbut I\u2019d never had osmanthus before,\u201d which she described as floral and delicate like chrysanthemum. I\u2019d describe this piece as TCM-lite.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Winter piece is flavored with\u00a0black sesame\u00a0and\u00a0he shou wu, another medicinal botanical that Wendy wasn\u2019t familiar with.\u00a0She described it as an earthy flavor. I thought the piece was mostly chocolatey, but slightly metallic and woody with an astringent, slightly tongue-numbing after-sensation. Definitely a new chocolate-tasting experience for me.<\/p>\n

According to 5Yina, the black sesame seed that decorates the top of the piece and is also ground into the ganache\u00a0\u201cis rich in beneficial minerals and phytosterols to promote healthy bones, skin and hair,\u201d and he shou wu is an \u201cherb that boosts energy and nourishes the blood. Known as a youth-preserving tonic.\u201d<\/p>\n

My favorite piece is the matcha-and-mint Summer. It\u2019s another strong chocolatey piece, but it\u2019s also immediately very minty, almost like spearmint gum. Next you feel the powdery texture from the matcha and get a subtle green tea taste. I haven\u2019t had this combination before and I really liked it, whether it aids my digestion or not.<\/p>\n

Limited-time offering<\/h2>\n

The TCM collection is available now through the end of February 2017. Wendy explained that while it \u201cstarted as a collaborative project for 5Yina to give to customers in November and December; I had some in the store, testing it out. It did really well, so I decided to have it for Lunar New Year and through the end of February.\u201d<\/p>\n

She might have it again at other times, but she explained, \u201cWe have to vary what we offer.\u00a0There are some\u00a0things we always have, but I always have different projects I\u2019m working on. This one is\u00a0really cool, I love it. It\u2019s\u00a0meaningful, because it has a connection to my childhood. TCM was very much a part of my growing up, but this shows it in a different light.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eat chocolate for a good cause<\/h2>\n

If you miss the limited-time TCM collection or are just looking for Asian flavors that are a little more mainstream, Socola has you covered with flavors that range from tropical fruits to tea and coffee. And if chocolate is a guilty pleasure for you (but hey, health benefits<\/a>, remember?), then ease your guilt by choosing the\u00a0Catalyst Collection, which includes\u00a0Jasmine Tea, Give It To Me Guava, Passionfruit Vanilla Bean and Vietnamese Coffee. In addition to the enjoyable flavors, you can be proud that 10% of the proceeds go to Vietnamese NGO The Catalyst Foundation.<\/p>\n

Happy Anniversary for everybody<\/h2>\n

In addition to the special TCM chocolates in the month of February, Socola is celebrating their\u00a0Socola 3-Year Store Anniversary, Friday & Saturday, 2.10-2.11.17, with free French press coffee and cognac truffles all day.<\/p>\n

And in time for Valentines Day, they have\u00a0their\u00a0Aphrodite’s Delight Valentine’s Day Collection, which features\u00a0their Burnt Baby Burnt\u00a0burnt caramel chocolates topped with red Hawaiian sea salt, and Hot Lava chocolates\u00a0(raspberry pate de fruit with champagne ganache).<\/p>\n

In March, Socola Chocolates will be at CAAM Feast\u00a0(3.4.17) and the\u00a0CAAM Film Festival Opening Night Gala at the Asian Art Museum (3.9.17 ), plus the\u00a0SF International Chocolate Salon<\/a> (3.18.17).<\/p>\n

Socola Chocolatier<\/a>,<\/strong>\u00a0535 Folsom St., SF.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New health benefits, same great taste<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[750,15,169,41],"tags":[897,896,470,281,212,1074],"class_list":["post-9510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-local-chocolate","category-reviews","category-san-francisco-chocolate","tag-5yina","tag-chinese-medicine","tag-durian","tag-socola-chocolatier","tag-sriracha","tag-veteran-sfba-artisan-chocolatier"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9510","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=9510"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44441,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9510\/revisions\/44441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}