A taste of the promised land

While we have for many moons wandered apart in the COVID desert, now, we hath arrived at the beginning of a most promised place: the land of milk and honey.

Gaze upon your monthly collection and rejoice! Three barks shall you find inside, each paired with their own honey from the forests of Ethiopia. The chocolate itself hails from Ecuador, and the coffee with which some keep company, Sumatra.

Be a loudmouth

Here on the edge of summer, and the whole world opening up again, we want to jump, shout, and vibe out the best way we know how: through chocolate. (I mean, really, what else were you expecting?)

This collection is bright and bold, ready to plaster your palette with big flavors to match our big mood. Passionfruit ganache, gianduja, coffee bark and berry bark... we're leaving subtle flavors for another month.

The start of a new beginning

Spring is very much here: the days are brighter, the world is greener, and soon we prepare to blossom forth from our own COVID pods. It's a lot to be excited about.

We're marking the occasion with a floral collection of chocolates, featuring a ganache trio in jasmine, lavender, and vanilla.

We're also including a very special edition of our Jitter Bark, made with an 81% Ecuadorian dark chocolate and Sumatran coffee beans roasted by our friend Diego Rodríguez from Front Coffee.

Coming home

We're done with our virtual travels around the world and ready for something a bit more homey and familiar, which is why this month we're putting together a collection of fan favorites. A Greatest Hits confection collection.

You'll find strawberry ganache, hazelnut crunch, and salted caramels among others. They're just as excited to see you again as you them.

Before we get to this month's theme (and it's a good one), we need to acknowledge the pink elephant in the room: Valentine's Day. We're tremendously excited to team up again with the ludicrously talented Simona Bunardzhieva for a limited Kiki's Cocoa gift set featuring her gorgeous ink illustrations on the packaging. If you're interested, send an email with the quantity and a written note you'd like to include and we'll work it out.

Happening right now: Seven Wonders of the World

The Kiki's Cocoa team are travelers at heart, and we feel for all those passports sitting in drawers, collecting dust as quarantine trudges on. Each month we'll visit one of the new Seven Wonders of the World, with chocolates that borrow from traditional flavors of the region and, when possible, the time period the Wonder was constructed.

Last stop: Chichen Itza — Jewel of the Mayan Empire, and the birthplace of chocolate as we know it. We're featuring passionfruit ganache, milk & honey ganache, and force noir with coffee beans from a neighboring region. And of course, the signature pink Berry Bark.

Sixth stop: Petra, Jordan. — We're greeting 2021 with an extra dose of crossed fingers, dipped in a rich optimism coating. For our part, we'll be making sure your year is brimming with confections — starting with our continuation of the Modern 7 Wonders tour as we go to Petra. The capital city of the nomadic Nabatean people, it is considered a marvel of engineering that enabled natural resources to flow into an otherwise barren, uneasily accessed land.
This month's collection too brings an abundance of Jordanian flavors and resources into air quarantine palates. You'll find rose caramels, sharp coffee ganache, delicately crispy chocolate-dipped sesame tuiles, and to cap it all off, a walnut mélange.

Fifth stop: The Colosseum in Rome, Italy. — We're properly into the festive season, and nothing says "holiday spirit" like the glory of the Roman Empire. Heck, without Rome we wouldn't even have Christmas! So don we now our toga apparel for this month's 7 Modern Wonders trip to the Coliseum (built just 37 years after the crucifixion!) and traditional flavors of the Italian peninsula — some of which are surprisingly seasonal by modern American tastes!

This collection features a trio of barks in cinnamon (used for incense and spicing wine!), cardamom, and coriander. We're also introducing a new olive oil ganache, which we'll featured alongside our classic hazelnut crunch and almond fusion ganaches. We figured we'd skip on the parsley truffles.

Fourth stop: the Christ of the Redeemer statue. — American problems? Psht, deixa pra lá — forget about that! We're leaving the madness for Brazil! The Christ the Redeemer statue is by far the most contemporary of the 7 Modern Wonders, but this month's Brazilian flavors are timeless.

We've pulled out all the stops this month, starting with our own twist on brigadeiros, a festival truffle made from condensed milk, cocoa powder, and butter. You'll also find açaí and passionfruit bark, Força Negra truffles, and Doce de Leite cups. It's the best anti-anxiety remedy you can get without a prescription.

Third stop: Machu Picchu . — Occupied for barely 100 years before Pizarro messed everything up, this sacred mountain top estate for the emperor was totally self-sufficient. Talk about shelter-in-place.

This month’s collection draws from Peruvian agricultural staples, including quinoa bark, chile-infused choco picante, pitahaya (dragon fruit) ganache, and cherry truffles. After all, you are the emperor of your estate, and you should indulge like one.

Second stop: the Taj Mahal. — we're ditching the smoke (on the coast of California) and taking a long labor day weekend trip to Agra. The Taj Mahal was a jewel of the Mughal Empire, though Agra ceased to be the capital just 16 years after the mausoleum was commissioned.

But like the Taj Mahal, Mughal flavors remain just as relevant as ever, from fine dining to street food... and now, in your Cocoa Club.

This month you'll find a kaleidoscope of Indian flavors, from (vegan) Chai spiced truffles to cashew and pistachio mendians. You'll also find cardamom ganache and, drum roll please, saffron-laced almond infusion ganaches. We'll give you a moment.

First stop: the Great Wall of China, constructed over 2000 years ago. You'll find our own take on long-grain puffed rice bark with a perfect fluffy crunch. We've also brewed jasmine tea ganache. Sure, jasmine tea was popularized a thousand years after the Great Wall was built - let's average it out with the agricultural history of rice and call it even.

July 2020: Cocoa Crazy

Here we are, staring down another few months of isolation and distancing. It's enough to make anyone go mad. So, in solidarity, we turn to Marie Corelli, one of the most wildly popular Victorian authors of her time (surpassing the sales of her peers H.G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Rudyard Kipling. No big deal.) 

And how could she not be, with excerpts like this, from 1890's Wormwood: A Drama of Paris:

“Let me be mad, then, by all means! Mad with the madness of Absinthe, the wildest, most luxurious madness in the world! Vive la folie! Vive l'amour! Vive l'animalisme! Vive le Diable!”

This month's madness features absinthe ganache, our spicy choco picante with cayenne, hazelnut fillings to keep us nutty, and candy cap mushroom-infused ganache if you find yourself getting a bit too sane. 

June 2020: Chocolate is coming. Meanwhile, fight on.

Before your monthly newsletter, we'd like to take a moment to address the nationwide protests against the systemic injustice and extrajudicial murder of Black people. Kiki's Cocoa stands wholeheartedly with those fighting for equality and a justice system that treats everyone as human beings. Black lives matter.

Enjoy your chocolate. May it fuel you in the struggle.

___

Our passage for June comes from Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott (a staunch abolitionist and suffragette, who served as a Union nurse in the Civil War.)

“Jo’s one strong point was the fruit, for she had sugared it well, and had a pitcher of rich cream to eat with it. Her hot cheeks cooled a trifle, and she drew a long breath as the pretty glass plates went round, and everyone looked graciously at the little rosy islands floating in a sea of cream.”

You'll find these flavors in full with sweet cream and honey ganache, strawberry Pud' Pods (our nod to trifle), cherry truffle, and berry bark.

May 2020: Save Mom's sanity with chocolates

We're keeping track of time, when it exists. And so we are here to gently inform you that it is not March, but May, which means Mother's Day is just a week away. 

Yeah, that was our reaction too.

Then we rolled up our sleeves and started making some more literature-themed chocolates. After all, these moms aren't going to appreciate themselves. This pandemic week, we're leaning into the value of ritual with a passage from Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler:

“I had a ritual—and having any ritual sounded so mature that I told everyone about it, even the regulars. On my days off I woke up late and went to the coffee shop and had a cappuccino and read. Then around five p.m., when the light was failing, I would take out a bottle of dry sherry and pour myself a glass, take out a jar of green olives, put on Miles Davis, and read the wine atlas. I didn’t know why it felt so luxurious, but one day I realized that ritual was why I had moved to New York—to eat olives and get tipsy and read about Nebbiolo while the sun set. I had created a life that was bent in service to all my personal cravings.”

In that spirit, you'll find some cappuccino ganaches for morning coffee, cognac truffles (for getting tipsy) and a special strawberry ganache, plus some nutty treats.

April 2020: The COVID Correction Collection

This month we’re continuing our literary theme with a trip through the universe, a little hint of apocalypse, and a lot of booze.

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy also mentions alcohol. It says that the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. It says that the effect of drinking a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick.

The Guide also tells you on which planets the best Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters are mixed, how much you can expect to pay for one and what voluntary organizations exist to help you rehabilitate afterward.
...
'Six pints of bitter,' said Ford Prefect to the barman of the Horse and Groom. 'And quickly please, the world's about to end.'"

- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

We're pulling from the top shelf this month, with Dark'n'Stormy truffles, absinthe ganache, and lemon verbena confections (BYOBrick).

January 2020: Bringing Flavors from Page to Palette

We're kicking off something really cool this year: the Edible Bookclub series. Each month's chapter (if you will) of Kiki's Cocoa Club is all about flavors lifted from literature, translating authors' descriptions of foods into chocolate treats. To kick it off, we're turning to a giant of the canon: James Joyce, and the feelings that come with a perfectly prepared meal in Ulysses.

"...Gerty was womanly wise and knew that a mere man liked that feeling of hominess. Her griddlecakes done to a golden-brown hue and queen Ann’s pudding of delightful creaminess had won golden opinions from all because she had a lucky hand also for lighting a fire, dredge in the fine self-raising flour and always stir in the same directions, then cream the milk and sugar and whisk well the whites of eggs though she didn’t like the eating part when there were many people that made her shy and often she wondered why you couldn’t eat something poetical like violets or roses.”

We're taking those same floral notes and bringing you rose caramels, with candied violet petals adorning chocolate-dipped shortbreads (we're passing on dipped griddlecakes, sorry not sorry). And cream makes a play in a trio of ganaches which, we promise, were stirred in the same direction, to make Gerty proud.

December 2019: Let it Cho, Let it Cho, Let it Cho

What a year it has been! We went on an art walk through styles, partnered with artists and artisans, and even took a trip to Tanzania. All in the name of you. And chocolate. We couldn't - and wouldn't - have done it without you both.

This December wrap-up is coming to you literally wrapped up in one of our most amazing package designs to date. We're still waiting on the printer, so expect deliveries just before Santa drops by. If you've been good this year, you'll find champagne truffles, almond-oat ganache, and our "force noir" truffles made with special single-origin Belizean chocolate from our friends at Pipevine Chocolate.