Another #veganuary review today, and this time it's for a very special bar indeed. This is an "Academy of Chocolate Bronze 2016 Winner", made in micro batches with directly traded single estate cacao. It's called Solkiki Toasted White and is minimally processed with only three ingredients: organic cold-pressed cacao butter, organic cane sugar and organic coconut. Does the lack of extra ingredients make it boring? Definitely not!
As well as being vegan and dairy free, like all of Solkiki's chocolates this bar is GMO free, and free from pesticides and herbicides. It's made in Solkiki's renewable factory, which offers only uncut, unprocessed chocolate. Pretty impressive!
I love the presentation of the bar; it feels super special with it's mysterious black wrapper.
There's a "Tasting Notes" board where you can mark which flavours you feel best describe the chocolate. Such a fun touch! There's also this cheeky Day Of The Dead skull making an appearance:
Onto the chocolate then, opening the wrapper it had a sweet, slightly biscuity aroma. I couldn't wait to get stuck in!
There's no blocks on the bar, you just snap off as much as you fancy, which is always a good thing in my book! There's flowery patterns printed on the chocolate as well as the Solkiki logo.
I took a bite. Oh my...this is the nicest vegan chocolate I've ever tasted! Seriously seriously good. It's unebelievably creamy and silky in the mouth, with a lovely smooth texture. It makes me think of Milkbar, but if it were made with super high quality ingredients, and without milk obviously. There's a nice cacao flavor from the cacao butter mixed in with the more biscuity flavours, which are presumably from the coconut. Unlike most vegan white chocolates it doesn't taste "thin" or "light", it's a fuller bodied flavor that makes it more reminiscent of white chocolate with milk in.
This was an absolute delight, and although it's satisfying, in the words of Mary Berry:
via GIPHY
Unfortunately, at £3.50 a bar this is not an every day indulgence, but I'm not complaining because good quality ingredients don't come cheap. Chocolate like this is something to savour as a true treat.
Overall, I really can't sing this bars praises enough, and I don't think you have to be dairy free or vegan to appreciate it - it's just good chocolate!
9.5 out of 10.
