Chocolate tasting in itself is a skill and enjoying premium
quality chocolate is a blissful experience like nothing else. Every chocolate
has its unique set of flavor profiles and like we know, the flavor compounds
found in a dark chocolate exceeds the ones present in a red wine. Talking about
dark chocolates, recently I was contacted by social media marketing
organization, Graphicsque who invited me for a chocolate tasting at the newly
opened home confectionary called "Sylph Chocolates" at BK block,
Saltlake. I received one lovely Chef special pack of sixteen assorted luxury
chocolates, neatly packed with branded black colored ‘Sylph Chocolates’
ribbons. The packaging was wonderful and that attracts eyeballs for sure.
It is
also perfect to be gifted to your loved ones or friends. We all know that chocolate
is best enjoyed when it is savored slowly and not quickly eaten. So I patiently
clicked some pictures for my review before delving deep into the complex flavors
of dark chocolates :)
Since cocoa bean is the source of all chocolates, its
characteristics and hence the flavor of the chocolate varies from one geography
to another, we often realize that dark chocolate bar of one brand tastes so
different from that of another brand, there are several factors involved in
this variance but surely the source plays a major role in deciding the flavor
and the richness. Here the box (from Sylph Chocolates) in front of me had some
really interesting soft home-made chocolates, that too in so many flavors. The
pack had eight unique flavors and there were two pieces of each flavor, enough
for my tasting purpose. Now let us check
out these eight flavored chocolates and run through some of their
characteristics that I found worth sharing –
a) Coffee – First of all it looked solid and stunning, the
best looking chocolate of the lot. It is coffee flavored dark chocolate, quite
rich and smooth. It has got no filling inside. The flavor of coffee infused in
the chocolate is pretty mild. The mildness is tad on the lower side and can be
increased to an optimum level.
b) Strawberry – It is again a dark chocolate with fillings
of strawberry flavored pink colored chocolate and strawberry flavored jelly
inside. Just put it in our mouth and let the flavors do the magic, the intense
and complex flavors will surely take you by surprise. Recommended!
c) Caramel – It looks really nice and has a rich filling of
caramel inside the dark chocolate covering. The caramel is mild flavored and
gives overall depth to this piece. You can get the caramel filling inside by breaking
the piece into half. When broken it resonates with a resounding snap and
exhibit a fine gradient along the broken edge.
d) Paan – The aroma of paan masala hits you as soon as you
unwrap this chocolate. The looks are pretty ordinary and predictable. There is
a thin line where you can press gently with your teeth to break open the
chocolate. The centre houses some not-so-hard, bit mushy chocolate with loads
of paan essence and so it actually should not be broken into two halves before consuming! It should be consumed as a whole. The outer covering is
of solid dark chocolate and overall the stuff tastes good.
e) Nuts – Though I am not fond of nutty chocolates but I
went on to taste this variant of Sylph Chocolates. It had crushed nuts inside
dark chocolate which I thought was pretty unique. Some portion of the nut was
finely crushed was some had bigger pieces of crushed nuts and almonds. Here you
won’t find any whole nut inside the chocolate occupying most of the spaces,
here it is mostly rich and smooth chocolate mixed with crushed nuts, which is a
better approach.
f) Cracker – I love Hershey’s chocolates with such crackers
inside, so I was excited to try this one out. Here the chocolate looked nice
and solid and when you take a bite you will realize you have got loads of
crackers inside your mouth which are such fun to consume in dark chocolate. But
here this stuff lacked mint chocolate chips which if added could have done
wonders. The round buttery globules of crackers are fluffy and crack inside
your mouth once you bite them. The entire stuff was fresh, rich and yummy!
g) Orange – Fresh orangey aroma hits you as soon as you
unwrap the chocolate. It looks more or less like the strawberry chocolate but
tastes very different, as expected. It has a mushy chocolate filling inside
with tangy orange flavor. Size of the stuff is bit smaller though the dark
chocolate and orange combo goes well, but I would suggest the orangish flavor
can be made a tad stronger to make things even more exciting.
h) Nutella – The stuff looks pretty good. Beware; it cracks
open if you press gently with your teeth and the sweetened hazelnut cocoa spread
spills out. The dark chocolate covering is aptly quite thin. This is one of the
best and thoughtful chocolates I have had in a long time. Best of the lot!
Overall, it was a lovely experience tasting all these silky
home-made chocolates. Would surely try out their chocolate bars later and the
brownies. They are also reasonably
priced apart from being freshly home-made, so it is a great option for gifting
your loved ones.
I wish the team all the best for their future endeavors and
hope Sylph Chocolates climbs greater heights in the coming days. Do try them
out if you already haven’t.
Cheers!
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