The Hogarth Monsoon bar is a 66% dark chocolate bar with beans from Hacienda Victoria, Ecuador.
The ingredients include candied ginger, chili, lime oil, and lemongrass oil.

This has a firm texture and snap.  The first notes you taste are a sweetness with lime peel and cocoa flavours, then the ginger and chili kicks in growing stronger and stronger until it gives you a good slap in the mouth.

The flavours are nice. We were pleasantly surprised by the lime oil as we haven't really enjoyed citrus oils in chocolate, but this added a nice lime marmalade type tang. Joni loved the heat slap at the end, but Joey wasn't so much a fan of the chili hit.  

​This was a fun tasting.

At the Choc Stock festival we visited Jonty the Lucid Chocolatier to see what is on offer at the moment.  We picked up a bar and got a selection of his bon bons.  We have previously  got a sample of his trial stage bonbons and confectionary, so we were excited to see the final product on offer.

Our most favourite bonbons were the Port and Tonka Infused caramels.  Yummy and melt in the mouth.
From our previous samples, the Almond dragees were nice, but our overall, must try FAVOURITE is the Vanilla Chocolate Caramels!!  Gorgeous flavour and texture, and we love the finger size.

 AO Cacao is another new chocolate maker to us.  We bought a range of their bars from the Wellington Choc Stock festival to try.  

AO Cacao is created by Thomas Netana Wright, a pastry chef, chocolatier and chocolate maker.  The inspiration and approach to chocolate making is quoted on their website:
"Respect the history of cacao, Respect the People, Be Transparent and Be a good ancestor."

Their cacao is sourced from Tuana'i, Samoa

The first bar we tried is the Everything Gianduja 43% milk chocolate.  It has won a gold medal at the Food Producer Awards 2024.

When we first read Gianduja, we thought of the hazelnut filling.  This bar instead refers to the hazelnut and macadamias being the plant based milk for the milk chocolate.

We thought the chocolate was nice and creamy.  It is a mild chocolate with our tasting notes of vanilla, burning wood and musk.   A pleasant bar.

Coromandel Chocolate is a chocolate maker that is new to us, so we were excited to pick up a few bars from them at the Choc Stock festival.

Coromandel Chocolate is a family owned business in Whangamata, New Zealand.  They make their chocolate from beans sourced from Malekula in Vanuatu Archipelago.  They use earth conscious packaging and ethical ingredients.

The first bar to taste:  A milk chocolate, Toasted Coconut Rough with Passionfruit.

Joni is a coconut rough fan, Joey is not, so you will  get both sides with this one.
This is certainly a coconut rough with lots of coconut.  Sugar is the 2nd listed ingredient, but it is suprisingly only slightly sweet.  It is tangy.  The passionfruit gives a tangy dried fruit flavour with just a hint of passionfruit taste.  We like that the passionfruit is not a strong flavour.  Sometimes passionfruit in chocolate can  be a bit overpowering and sickly, but here it is a nice and gives the coconut rough an added yumminess.... if you like coconut rough.  The chocolate flavours are a very mild backdrop.  If you like coconut rough,  then this is nice.  If you are not a coconut rough fan, this won't change your mind.

This is a bar was one of the one we bought from Baron Hasselhoff's when we attended the Wellington ChocStock Festival.

The Cheese Bar is 60% Vanuatu Origin Cacao milk chocolate.  It is blended with an award winning aged danbo cheese from Hohepa Cheese.  Here is a link to the cheese:  Hohepa Danbo Cheese

They say on the cheese website that Danbo is similar to Dutch Gouda.
When we sampled it at ChocStock, we could immediately taste the cheese as well as the chocolate.  We opened the chocolate bar after lunch with the Wellington Gazetters.  Because part of our lunch was a cheese, some of us found it nullified the taste of the cheese in the chocolate.  Peter tasted it as an aftertaste.  Johanan tasted it straight away, but the rest of us could only taste the cheese in the chocolate after we drank some water and cleansed our palates.

This is a clever blending of flavours.  The slightly yeasty, sour tang of cheese and chocolate flavours go so well together.  There is a sweetness that is just right, and even though it is a milk chocolate, the chocolate  comes through quite strong.  We really enjoyed this one.