Open daily | Book in advance to secure your place
Open daily | Book in advance to secure your place
Coffee and chocolate are practically best friends, two plants that require the same growing conditions along the equator, growing in the same types of soil and often grown intertwined next to one another.
We process cacao beans quite similarly to coffee, even roasting them to bring out more of their flavour. We’re here to explore this wonderful relationship and to give you the top 5 coffee chocolate bars you need to try, alongside coffee and chocolate knowledge.
Besides their similar growing behaviours, coffee and chocolate pair well on a flavour scale for several reasons. As already mentioned, the same processes are performed on them, including roasting, drying, fermenting and grinding. Both beans have similar flavour profiles, ranging from bitter to fruity, with coffee normally used in chocolate dishes as a way to enhance and heighten the chocolatey taste.
Similarly, on a chemical level, both chocolate and coffee contain caffeine and other similar chemicals. Caffeine is what gives coffee its buzz, and though chocolate contains some too, most of its buzz comes from theobromine, a stimulant similar to caffeine found in chocolate.
As well as that, both are enjoyed as a comforting treat, and a culture of both being pleasures has grown over the world, with both being enjoyed separately and together as a moment to rest, breathe and relax.
So, with that knowledge, let’s take a look at the best coffee-fuelled chocolate bars!
Yes, we know it’s not coffee. Still, since matcha is having a viral moment, it’s only fair to point out another caffeinated chocolate bar, though not with coffee. Matcha is a green tea powder originally popular in Japan and Korea, and now all over the globe, in lattes, flat whites, or just straight. Willie’s Cacao took the powder and put it into their sweet white chocolate for a caffeinated buzz with a bit of a different taste than coffee.
Chocolate Society has taken a delicious 60% dark chocolate and infused it with a real cup of joe. However, they didn’t stop there. By swirling white chocolate throughout the bar, they’ve created a milky coffee chocolate, not unlike the name of the bar. Creamy, dark, robust and highly caffeinated, we can’t get enough of this one.
This one’s for the lactose-intolerant coffee-lovers, or even those who prefer a splash of oat milk in their coffee compared to regular dairy. Otherly have created a bar that uses oatmilk as a sweetness and texture enhancer, allowing the coffee and chocolate notes to come through strongly, but with a slight milky backnote.
You can find ca phe sua on every street corner in Vietnam. A favourite among the Vietnamese, it’s a coffee drink mixed with condensed milk for a caramelised sweetness and creaminess. Vietnamese-French chocolate maker Marou recreates this drink in their milk chocolate, with a deep coffee flavour, but the taste is sweet and complex like the drink it’s named after.
Glaswegian chocolate maker Bare Bones seeks beans based on flavour first and foremost, and while doing the same with coffee, in this case an Ethiopian bean sourced by local coffee roaster, Tin Donkey, they have created a perfect flavour mash-up. With such careful consideration, this award-winning chocolate bar is complex with notes of fudge and dates, with the coffee also front and centre.
Chocolate Tree has combined their delicious bean-to-bar dark chocolate with crumbled hazelnuts and coffee, doubling up on adored classic flavour pairings. What we’ve ended up with is a Nutella-like chocolate bar with a deeper chocolate flavour and a coffee note to boot. Sprinkled with cacao nibs for a crunchy bite, the cacao nibs further enhance the coffee flavour, making this a must-try for nut and coffee lovers!
