Newtree chocolate and health

The chocolate trend gives us some interesting new chocolates to play around with. Newtree, a company founded 2001, combines chocolate and health in a pretty romantic way. Take a look at their website and listen to the nice flutes for exemple. We found their napolitans (small chocolate bars 9 gram each) at Anneli K (swedish only) and decided to try them out. Since we weren't in a mood for big protocols we just scribbled some words on the back side of every wrapping, giving a short "grade" and an evaluation.

Ok, here we go

Newtree Napolitans

The overall presentation is very nice. The wrapping is graphically pleasing, with a hint of the romantic. On the front side you the healthy ingredient (or the flavour) is depicted and on the backside you find a small note of your benefits. I've included the benefits for you to read

Digestion
Lemon
Dark chocolate (72% minimum)

"Your benefits
*Also contains a natural cactus extract, rich in fibres
*Reduces the intake of calories"

Our grade: Hmmmm
Evaluation: Excuse me, where's the lemmon?

Pleasure
Chocolate Noir
72% Cocoa

"Your benefits
*Contains 72% cocoa
*Naturally rich in vitamins, minerals and fibrers"

Our grade: OK
Evaluation: Your average dark chocolate

Cocoon
Milk chocolate
Harmony
Cinnamon

"Your benefits
*Also contains a natural extract of soy germ, rich in isoflavenes
*Soy isoflavenes are known to relieve feminine problems and to reduce the loss of calcium"

Grade: Tasty!
Evaluation: As soon as you felt the actual cinnamon taste.

Serenity
Milk chocolate
Relax
Bitter orange

"Your benefits
*Also contains natural lime blossom extracts
*3 squares = same relaxing effect as 1 cup of lime blossoms tea"

Grade: Nice and sweet
Evaluation: Sort of crunchy, but I really wont say if it makes you more peacefull.
[Small note: I think this is the chocolate Jayne eats, but he rips of the wrapping immediatly and grunts a bit first to prove that he's not a sissy.]

Eternity
Dark chocolate
Antioxodant
Blackcurrant

"Your benefits
*Also contains grape, rich in antioxidants
*3 squares = more antioxidants than in 1 glas of red wine"

Grade: Well....
Evaluation: Not a successfull mix of tastes

Young
Dark chocolate
Antioxidant
Cherry

"Your benefits
*Also contains grape, rich in antioxidants
*3 squares = more antioxidants than in 1 glas of red wine"

Grade: Ok
Evaluation: You had to search for the cherry taste.

Sexy
Dark chocolate
Vitality
Ginger

"Your benefits
*Also contains guarana, a small red fruit with invigorating properties
*3 squares = same stimulating effect as 1 cup of coffee"

Grade: Not bad at all!
Evaluation: Well worth eating again, eventhough the ginger taste was pretty discrete

Vivacity
Dark chocolate
Vitality
Coffee

"Your benefits
*Also contains guarana, a small red fruit with invigorating properties
*3 squares = same stimulating effect as 1 cup of coffee"

Grade: Good
Evaluation: Coffee and chocolate fits together, but do I feel coffee ground between my teeth?

Tranquility
Milk chocolate
Relax
Lavender

"Your benefits
*Also contains natural lime blossom extracts
*3 squares = same relaxing effect as 1 cup of lime blossoms tea"

Grade: Odd

Sweet indulgence!

Antwerpen

As you may have noticed there's a big gap between my two last posts. Together with my family I went to Belgium, one of the paradises on earth for chocolate lovers. Since we did a homeexchange we didn't get any chocolate on our pillows when we got there. No, our hosts had kindly left at least half a kilo of Côte d'Or for us to enjoy. Being on a regular vacation I didn't explore as much chocolate as one can imagine, but we did try three different makers of filled chocolate, and in general enjoyed the chocolate culture. Being oversensitive of coffee and tea I allways order hot cocoa after my meal or for my midafternoon snack (the most common swedish custom is to have coffee), and I allways had good hot cocoa in Belgium. Shouldn't have come as a surprise, but years of watery instant cocoa made from powder has made me a bit suspicious.

The names of the three makers of filled chocolates were G Bastin, Elisa belgian chocolate and Devina, finest belgian chocolate. They were all located in or close to the most touristy parts of Antwerpen (regular vacation, remeber). The quality on the chocolates was nevertheless good, and seem little affected by the location

Elisa, belgian chocolate
Grote Markt 2
Antwerpen

Elisa sells general luxury truffles. They look nice and tastes good. The shopkeeper was nice too.


G Bastin
Blauwmozelstraat 3
2000 Antwerpen
(they also have a bigger shop at Paardenmarkt 106-108)

G Bastin sells luxury truffles as well as luxury chocolate bars. Since we visited the shop close to the cathedral we could buy tin boxes with minibars having the cathedral as a carving on the top side. The truffles were in level witt our own chocolatier (Anneli K, Uppsala), and I particularly remember the Rubens coin and the chocolate with ginger that was shaped as a buddha. G Bastin is the only one of the three that has a homepage (that I know of), and as a bonus you can order their chocolate online. Recommended.

Devina, finest belgian chocolate

Devina looks like yet another filled-chocolates-for-tourists-shop (which isn't that bad - I suspect it's impossible to get bad chocolate in Belgium). They claim to sell the best chocolates in town and they mention in their flyer that they have a post in "Guide Bleu", unfortunately my swift research on the internet haven't given me any clue on what that is or its relation to the wellknown Guide Rouge, so I can't evaluate the statement. What I can say is that their filled chocolates were the best we ate. I fondly remeber the one filled with caramell. Highly recommended - a must.

Trying belgian filled chocolate is perhaps not the best way to do it. The belgians seems to enjoy chocolate, so what we should have done was to buy us different brands of chocolate bars, as well as the different chocolate pastes for sandwiches. Ah well; that's a very good excuse for making another trip :-)

Sweet indulgance!

Working at the chocolate factory

I've done it for a few month. Not to be recommended if you really love chocolate, because a job at a factory (whatever it makes) is hard work if you're on the floor like I was. You can easily lose your taste for this sweet indulgance. What I did discover was that some things you thought were made by machines still were made by hand. I put on little golden strips on tin boxes to keep the lid on, and I put in luxury truffels by hand too. So when I read about a man in Wisconsin that got trapped in a vat full of dark chocolate, I'm not surprised at all. I do send my best wishes to Darmin Garcia, I'm very happy that it all ended well.

CNN coverage of Darmin Garcia and the chocolate vat.

Sweet indulgances!