ZChocolat - The Pleasure of Receiving

 

After a long week, on Friday, I got THE CALL. My gift pack from zChocolat was finally here! I jumped off my seat, rushed downstairs, signed for receiving , and finally held a large silvery box with a big FRAGILE and KEEP AWAY FROM HEAT sign on it - the special summer packaging. I had been waiting for the ZChocolat Z37 Summerbox, and was excited like a little child about the fact that I was now holding the limited edition selection of handmade chocolates in my hands.

With the care and the patience of a watchmaker I opened every layer that stood between me and the chocolates. It was like a secret ritual I was undertaking, and the enthusiasm grew bigger and bigger with every “unwrapping”. It was a nice surprise to see that the chocolate box had been personalized with my name on it and I had received also a personal message to accompany my chocolates. It just gave the whole moment of receiving a special EXTRA, made ME feel SPECIAL.

Inside I found two boxes, containing different chocolates. One was a selection of the Orangettes, strips of candied orange peels covered in dark chocolate. The other one was with a selection of chocolates from zCocolat's 26 flavours numbered signature collection, which you can read more about here.
The chocolates are handcrafted in France by the World Champion Chocolatier and Meilleur Ouvrier, Pascal Caffet. For him, chocolate is an experience, which you will surely understand once you taste one of his 26 recipes created especially for ZChocolat, for which he uses no preservatives, no artificial colouring, 100% pure cocoa butter, modest sugar, high cocoa content, no alcohol, and only the best choice for the other ingredients as well, such as Piedmont hazelnuts, Iranian pistaccio, violets, raspberry, Sri Lankan coconut etc. However, not only choosing the best chocolate was a priority for this brand, but offering a customizable service of offering was also top of the list. The handmade packaging can be chosen as well, and it can be personalized with messages, just like my box was. You can choose the name of the receiver to be attached to the box, to give it the ultimate personal feel, you can also have an image put there, choose the personal assortment which will be, for example, sealed in the box with a coded heart-shaped lock...just let your imagination wander,...and ZChocolat will offer you the service.

As I mentioned before, this gift was a pure delight even during the moments I unwrapped it and found how everything was around the Summer zBox 37 was personalized for me. But the pleasure was even bigger once I started the tasting. I went in a random order, and wrote down my impressions:

Orangettes

- one of the things I loved about these is the balanced sweet and bitter taste, which lasts for a long, long time and fills your palate with the memory of the special moment you just tasted. I recommend you take one at the end of a dinner where meat has been served, and let it slowly melt in your mouth, so that you can have both a single taste of each ingredient, but also a mix of the flavours at the same time.

Chocolate #13
- sweet, but more sour (raspberry), with a bitter taste at the end (dark Venezuelan chocolate), floral taste, with a later aftertaste of fruity-ness, of summer, of raspberry

Chocolate #20
- very smooth milk chocolate, splash of orange and little orange zest/peel for a sweet-refreshing taste

Chocolate #3
- this one was our favourite so far. The filling, more fluid than the others, had a very fresh, young, splash in your mouth, indeed very summery…the taste of vacation and cocktails, of late evenings at the seaside, at the beach…

Chocolate #7
- why do I have a feeling I’m eating a tasty Marzipan-filled chocolate here? Because a creamy pistachio-almond paste is nicely surrounded by this milk-chocolate couverture. This is the first chocolate for which we cannot find a summer vibe, au contraire, the taste of Marzipan leads us to think that winter holiday seasons are about to start. We think snow and gifts…and suddenly, we get the refreshing factor…perfect for summer.

Chocolate #11
- reminds me of chocolate #13 – the filling has a strong raspberry taste, freshly sour, but is balanced now with the sweetness of the milk chocolate, a bit different from the bitterness of #13. After a small bite, my mother already thinks how to pair this chocolate with a Champagne cocktail. And she is right - it would be the perfect match.

Chocolate #17
- crunchy, exotic, bitter and sweet, a combination of Piedmont hazelnuts praline filling with Sri Lankan coconut and 70% Venezuelan dark chocolate – one word for this one: chic!

Flagship chocolate Z, with a white chocolate couverture
- creamy caramel, crunchy Piedmont hazelnuts, sweet and salty combination, very exquisite. Subtle caramel taste with a strong impression left by the hazelnuts. Chew slowly, let the aroma dissolve in your mouth and fill your taste buds with infinite pleasure.

Chocolate #23
- saved it for last, as my favourite chocolate is the dark one, and this one mixes two of them: the 62% as a filling and the 70% Venezuelan dark chocolate as the couverture. Both of them tied by a floral flavour (it almost felt as if I was smelling the violets as well) into a very, very alluring chocolate. I couldn’t control how much  “mmmmmmm”-s came out of my mouth as a reaction to the tasting of #23. Without planning, I had saved the best for last. The seductive taste of the chocolate made me think of a woman’s silhouette in a black evening dress. It is simply bewitching.

 
All in all, it was an experience I recommend to you all, a great gift idea (ZChocolat delivers worldwide, and very fast), but also a huge pleasure on the receiving end, for which I would like to thank ZChocolat.

I leave you with this short film from the company's vimeo channel, on which you can see the whole process which stands behind this brand. send a ZChocolat - Be sure to please!


Who is zChocolat ? 3' from zChocolat on Vimeo.

 Pictures were taken by me.