When talking about chocolate I can not think of one person who thinks... Ugh... no thank you! In all honesty I am not the biggest chocolate eater but that's more because I am more of a savoury kinda girl than a sweet tooth. Still, a piece of chocolate is kinda hard to resist. So when some of my colleagues at work started working on a project for a chocolate maker a lot of people got exited thinking of the possible chocolate coming around with that. And yes.... every once in a while... we would get a box of mini chocolates for the office. Hooray...!!
That's how I got in touch with Tony's Chocolonely. The chocolate maker they were working with. I had heard of them but never realized it was actually a Dutch company and that it was a company with such a clear and noble statement. A 100% slave free chocolate world. I don't want to make a big sob story of this, but I think we all know that things aren't always as equally divided as it should be and people are still being exploited to the good of others. That's why I like companies as Tony's Chocolonely. Of course what they do is such a small part of the bigger issue, but you have to start somewhere. And if I can help a teeny tiny bit by buying a piece of chocolate, that's ok by me! Don't mind it one bit. So with the excuse.. " I really really need to do a food piece on my blog I went of to get me some chocolate... "....
There are 5 flavours. Milk, Pure, Milk with hazelnut, Milk with nougat and Milk with caramel and sea salt. The first two I had already tasted at work. Not really special. To me it tastes like any other milk or pure chocolate bar. However, I really do love anything with caramel and it's well known that caramel and sea salt are besties of each other. So yes... that one was on top of my list to taste. Do I like it.... mwah... still haven't decided. While eating it you immediately taste the salt and yes it does it's work with the caramel and I was thinking..... "It's a keeper!!" But then the after taste. To my taste I keep tasting the sea salt too long. I would have rather ended with a caramely flavour. But then again my boyfriend really liked this one. Which proofs... to each his own taste.
Milk with hazelnut. Another one on my "gots to have" list. Can't go wrong with this one. It's just a yummy chocolate bar. In an ideal world there would be whole hazelnuts in the bar, but as they say themselves... "Our chocolate bars are unequally divided because things aren't fair in the chocolate world", so I can understand that this whole statement would go up in smoke if they would put whole nuts at an equal 5mm apart from each other in the bar. Side note.... I think it would be heaven to have the combo, hazelnut - caramel.... sigh...
Milk with nougat. This one is surprisingly good. Not much of a nougat fan but really liked it in combo with the chocolate. Made it a bit chewy. Can not say much more about this one then... "It's a keeper."
The website of Tony's is http://www.tonyschocolonely.com/ . It is in Dutch but they are working
on their English site. Hope they are going to launch that soon. For the Dutchies amongst us. The chocolate bars can be bought at many places. For instance through the website. I got mine at Albert Heijn.
Some statements from their website:
* We are on our way to 100% slave free chocolate.
* We buy our cocoa directly from the cocoa farmers in Ghana and Ivory Coast
* We found it strange that all chocolate bars are divided into equal pieces while things aren't as equal in the cocoa industry. With dividing our chocolate bars in unequal pieces we want to make our chocolate fans clear that earnings are unequally divided in the cocoa industry.
Enjoy!!!