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We’re very pleased to add Avanaa Chocolat to our increasing number of Canadian chocolate makers. We love the chocolate Avanaa makes, we’re intrigued by the cacao husk tea and we admire the story behind the company.
There’s a lot to know about Avanaa Chocolat, starting with Catherine, the company founder. She first discovered artisan chocolate on a trip to Peru. Then, while on a trip to Mexico, Catherine watched as local artisan chocolate makers create chocolate from locally grown cacao beans. She was fascinated having not really understood the process of making chocolate before.
This curiosity led Catherine to leave her job as an exploration geologist in James Bay and begin her journey into the world of cacao. She spent a year visiting cacao plantations around the world, going to Peru, Indonesia, Colombia, Honduras and others. This was her education in the growing of cacao, tasting the various flavours of origin beans and understanding the cacao production process.
After her travels she returned to Montreal with a bag of beans from Peru and a desire to experiment making chocolate. Roasting, grinding, refining, conching cacao in her apartment! She quickly understood that the quality of the bean is the secret to making great chocolate and that these beans comes form small farms and cooperatives. Thus she determined that would be where she would source her cocoa beans.
Catherine is dedicated to providing us with an ethical way to enjoy chocolate. Working primary with cooperatives working hard to preserve biodiversity and using agroforestry agriculture is the way to find the flavourful beans and contribute to the economy of farmers growing these cacao beans.
When deciding what to name her company she looked to the north for inspiration. Having spent a number of years working in James Bay she pays homage to Nunavut by naming her company Avanaa, which translated means “North” in Inuktitut and at the same time she says it has a southern connotation, a nod to cacao growing countries.
The mission at Avanaa is simple: to honour the work of farmers on cocoa plantations by making chocolate with epic flavours.
We are madly in love with these unique bars by ChocoSol. Made with Mexican, Guatemalan, Dominican Republic and Ecuadorian cocoa beans and, using a specific method that involves a low processing time, the result is a “rustic, full bodied mouth-feel and texture” that is simply delicious.
Using other ingredients, such as vanilla, sea salt, cherry, and pumpkin seeds or chilis, ChocoSol changes the texture, mouth-feel and experience of each unique bar.
ChocoSol’s award winning Jaguar Swirl and Jaguar Pure are beautifully made bars using albino cacao grown in Mexico. This cacao is seeing a regeneration through the efforts of ChocoSol and other artisans and farmers. These two bars are exceptional in taste and texture and should be on your “must try” list!
All bars are soy, gluten, dairy and nut free as well as vegan, and made in Toronto.
Based in Uxbridge, Ontario, chocolate makers Erik and Ariane are making single origin bars with fantastic flavour and a wonderful mouth feel. At the 2019 Academy of Chocolate Awards in London, UK, DESBARRES was the Winner of the International Rising Star Award, as well as receiving Gold awards for 2 bars, and bronze for 3 others!
Using cacao beans from Guatemala, Madagascar, Belize and Dominican Republic, and mixing in some interesting flavours such as saffron, cardamom, black pepper or nutmeg their bars are a stand out for unique flavour!
All bars are gluten and soy free, and vegan.
Finnia is a customer favourite with their ever changing assortment of bars. Lisabeth, the chief chocolate maker at Finnia, is always working on new bars, whether it’s different origins or flavour combinations, she is often coming up with a new bar we absolutely have to have in our store!
In 2018, two of Finnia's bars were awarded Bronze in their categories by the Academy of Chocolate 2018. Buttermilk, so rich and creamy you’ll moan when you taste it. 80% Canadian Maple that will make you stand up and pay attention to the flavour the maple adds to the rich flavours of the Honduras cocoa.
The 70% Honduras bar is a new addition in our Chocolate & Wine events because it pairs so deliciously well with it’s Catena Malbec partner! And the Special Edition bar The Sweet & Salty Canadian in a Peruvian cacao, sweetened with maple sugar and sprinkled with pure maple flakes, is not to be missed!
Made with all organic ingredients.
Hummingbird Chocolate needs no introduction! Our local rock star of the chocolate world, making award winning chocolate from their workshop in Almonte, Ont.
Whether you like plain dark bars with beans from Honduras, Dominican Republic, Columbia or Haiti, or flavoured bars like the Mayan, Fleur de Sel or PB and Joy - or even want to enjoy a bar sweetened with maple, Hummingbird has made a bar, or two, for you!
Hummingbird Chocolate bars have been recognized internationally for their wonderful chocolate. Along with receiving at least 85 awards from The Academy of Chocolate or the International Chocolate competitions, in 2016 they were awarded with the Golden Bean, giving their hispaniola bar the prestigious title of “best chocolate in the world”!
The plain bars are soy free, gluten free and vegan.
Founded in 2015 by a group of friends in Vancouver, KASAMA Chocolate started making small batch bean-to-bar chocolate with cacao from the Philippines. These 4 guys, Vincent, Dominik, Stefan and Oliver have been friends from a very young age, are passionate about food and got very excited when Vincent inherited a small piece of land in the Philippines that turned out had cacao trees growing on it. With absolutely no background in making chocolate, they dove right in, creating a business together and producing some amazing chocolate. KASAMA is the Filipino word for togetherness, friendship, camaraderie and collaboration - truly representing these chocolate makers and their chocolate.
We first tried MAC'S bars at the Winter Chocolate Show in Toronto in 2018 and decided right away that we needed to offer these bars to our customers. Brendan makes all his bars in small batches in Kingston, Ontario. All of his bars are made with Peruvian cocoa beans from the Ucayali River area, known for delicate fruity flavours, that provide a base for Brenda’s creative flavour inclusions.
Raspberry Tea, Strawberry Champagne and Raspberry Balsamic are just three of the interesting flavour combinations in these 70% dark bars.
Bars are made with organic cacao and organic cane sugar and are soy free.
Recently relocated from Calgary to St Andrews, New Brunswick, Mark and Victoria have been making chocolate since 2016. Their line of single origin bars ranges in cocoa content from 55% to 100% and they are working with some pretty interesting bean origins.
Along with beans from Belize, Costa Rica and Venezuela, they also use beans from India and Colombia. They love their cat so much, they have named all their flavour bars after him, so you can see Hank the cat on their milk, spicy, peanut and salted bars!
The newest bar we have in store is the Oatmeal Raisin Cookie bar with beans from Venezuela and Vegan Oat Milk, this bar tastes like an oatmeal raisin cookie!
All bars are soy and gluten free.
Made in Gatineau Quebec using a process that removes the bitterness from chocolate, Olivia Chocolat produces high cocoa content bars that are rich and full of flavour. Their chocolate is also vegan, allergen free and nut free – so that means everyone can enjoy this chocolate!
“Milk” options are created with coconut milk or hemp milk. Combining superfoods and a high cocoa content for “milk” bars makes for a sweet but healthy option and perfect for when your sweet tooth has a craving.
In Mont Tremblant, Quebec, chocolate maker, Palette de Bine, suffered a devastating fire in the fall of 2017, losing everything – the work shop, recipes, cocoa beans and the store. But, Christine Blais, the chocolate maker extraordinaire behind Palette de Bine, worked through this major set back and is producing beautiful bars once again.
Particular about the cacao beans she uses, Christine’s current assortment includes bars with Peru Nacional, Madagascar, Ecuador, Bolivia, Tanzania cacao as well as the newest beans - single-origin chocolate from Trinidad. Each with amazing and very different flavour profiles despite the same origin. The award winning Bines a l’erable made from Bolivia Wild Harvest cacao and Maple is to die for!
Other inclusions are coffee, fleur de sel, coconut and the very intriguing Sapin, a bar made with balsam fir needles grounded into powder and 70% Wild Bolivia cacao.
As well, a 100% Guatemala bar and a 110% bar. When asked what the heck is a 110% bar, Christine tells us it’s the 100% bar with 10% more cocoa nibs sprinkled in : )
The bars are all dairy, gluten, soy and nut free.
Elfi and Maxime are the chocolate makers extraordinaire behind Qantu Chocolate. They met 10 years ago while both traveling in Peru and fell in love. Four years later, and again in Peru, they visited a cocoa plantation and here they fell in love with cocoa. After doing some research and coming across the chocolate world of Bean to Bar they decided to try their hands at making
chocolate.
In 2016 they began their adventure and in 2017 they were awarded 2 Golds and 1 Silver award from Academy of Chocolate for their first three bars!!! And the rest is history. In 2018 each of their single origin bars, all made with Peruvian beans, took home a Gold. Two of these bars, Morropon 70% and Chuncho 70% were Golden Bean Winners - the highest accolades at the Academy!
The name Qantu comes from the national flower of Peru symbolizing unity and hospitality. Elfi and Maxime are very committed to Peru, and its people, where their passion for chocolate and their pride for cocoa farmers came to life!
We sell so many bars by Sirene Chocolate we never seem to have them all in stock at the same time!
Sirene Chocolate is crafted by Taylor Kennedy in his workshop in Victoria BC. He uses direct-sourced beans from select farms and “brings out the complex range of natural flavours inherent in each bean and transforms it into the chocolate of your dreams.” (Sirene). And true to his word, Taylor is producing dreamy chocolate that is winning multiple awards every year.
We love how Taylor describes his multi award winning Dark Milk bar - “Lets’ be clear. This is not milk chocolate, it is dark chocolate with milk added as flavour.” Say what?
All bars, except Dark Milk, are gluten, soy, dairy and nut free.
SOMA Chocolate started their adventure into chocolate in 2003, working from their workshop/retail shop in the Distillery area of Toronto. Their chocolate is nothing short of amazing and is loved by their fellow Torontonians, as well as anyone who can get their hands on it! We have been fortunate to carry SOMA chocolate in our store since we began our own chocolate adventure back in 2012.
Award winning, creative and explorative chocolate makers, the people at SOMA continue to send us our old favourites and give us new favourites.
Options include dairy free, gluten free, soy free plain dark micro batch bars made from single origin beans, as well as Roasted White, Milk Old School and Milk Starry Night.
Vaka Chocolate is the creation of Serge Savchuk, a bean to bar chocolate maker in London, Ontario. Starting with his kitchen and his curiosity, Serge began making chocolate from the bean in 2019. This quickly grew and in 2020, Serge opened the Vaka Chocolatory.
The Vaka bars reflect Serge’s obsession with novel ingredients and his “what if” approach to creating flavour combinations. The Waffle Crunch is a prime example of this approach. Made from scratch, he grinds fruity Nicaraguan cacao and roasted tiger nuts in a dark milk, studded with their now famous, gluten free and plant based waffle!
All bars are gluten free and plant based.
