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The annual World Chocolate Day is a great excuse for chocolate makers around the world to shout about their creations. It's also a great excuse for us chocolate lovers to grab a bargain from the canny brands that run time-limited discount codes to coincide with the event.
Seed Chocolate, a bean-to-bar chocolate maker in Stoke-on-Trent was one such business, and I took advantage of a 20% saving to order a selection of chocolate bars. The first up for review is this vivid purple-hued white chocolate bar that incorporates hibiscus into the recipe.
Packaging
At this point I'd normally write about the cardboard box or paper sleeve that protects the chocolate bar, but in this case, packaging is as minimal as it can be. Ordinarily it would be a biodegradable plastic, which is no surprise, especially after finding popcorn in the shipping box instead of difficult-to-recycle bubble wrap (which the birds and squirrels loved).
Packaging shortages as a result of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) meant this bar was heat-sealed inside regular plastic film. A sticker on the front carries the Seed Chocolate logo, while the sticker on the rear contains a customised ingredients list. The handwritten information lists the product name, ingredients, batch number, and best before date.
Seed Chocolate 40% Hibiscus White Chocolate bar ingredients:
Organic cacao butter (40% minimum), coconut milk, organic cane sugar, organic hibiscus.
No allergens are listed in this soy-free, dairy-free, gluten-free vegan chocolate bar. Believe it or not, the vivid and vibrant colour of this white chocolate bar is completely natural.
Seed Chocolate Vegan 40% Hibiscus White Chocolate Review
Yodel, the courier used on this occasion, managed to water-damage and squash my parcel en-route from the kitchen, so this bar arrived in four pieces, separated mostly along the grooves created by the decorative cacao pod chocolate bar mould.
The vivid colour of this quirky bar is mesmerising. This is purple white chocolate, and it's made with just four ingredients. It contains 40% organic, cold-pressed cacao butter which is ethically sourced from the Amazonia basin in northern Peru. The colour comes from hibiscus, which is more commonly found in fruit teas. To see it in a chocolate bar is fairly unusual, and that's the type of chocolate I love writing about here on Chocolatier.co.uk.
The tasting notes on Seed Chocolate's website reckon this white chocolate should convey flavours of tart red berries and zingy sherbet. So what's it like?
The first thing to notice is it has quite a low melting point, quickly softening in my fingers in seconds. The aroma of coconut is most dominant of all, with very gentle hints of cream and floral notes just about coming through.
The snap is very soft, and it's very delicate to hold, perhaps explaining why it ended up in several pieces in its cross-country journey.
There's an immediate sour sherbet tang to this chocolate, that continues right through the melt. The sourness isn't bitter, and is almost lemon-like in character. Sherbet is a great descriptor, and this sweet bar would give tangy confectionery a run for its money. I picked up hints of tart raspberry in the flavour, together with floral, almost herbal, notes. Coconut sits as a baseline under this and gently hums away in the background.
The aftertaste reveals green leafy notes mixed with coconut, set against a creamy background. There's a tart sherbet quality that lingers for a while too.
This is not your average chocolate bar. This four-ingredient white chocolate bar stands out thanks to its vibrant colour and lively flavour. It's quite sour and tangy, and a little goes a long way, but this chocolate bar will definitely tickle your taste buds. It's also perfect alongside a cup of dark coffee to balance the sweet, tangy qualities, or in-between nibbles of an intense 100% cacao bar.
If you like trying new foods and unusual flavours, you have to try this chocolate bar. This is a fun and whimsical sweet sherbet-like white chocolate that tastes completely different to anything I've tried so far.
Seed Chocolate 40% Hibiscus White Chocolate Review
RRP: £6.95 | Seed Chocolate | Shop now
Minimal packaging for this chocolate bar tells you all you need to know - it's all about the flavour. And boy does this bar deliver. At its core is a sweet and creamy white chocolate dyed purple by the tart and tangy hibiscus, spiked with coconut flavours. This is certainly a very unusual, uplifting, and whimsical white chocolate bar.
Where to Buy Online
You can buy this 40% Hibiscus White Chocolate bar directly from Seed Chocolate on their website (£6.95).
In normal times, you'd also be able to find Seed Chocolate at regional food festivals and events around Staffordshire, but the world is a bit topsy-turvy right now. Instead, Seed Chocolate has taken to the web, offering virtual chocolate tasting sessions at home using Zoom. Find out more and sign up for a session here.
Have you tried this hibiscus chocolate? Leave a comment below with your thoughts on this gorgeous purple bar.
