Jelina Chocolatier: Matcha Green Tea White Chocolate

Having found Jelina Chocolatier's chocolates favorable of late and having also an interest in white chocolate, I deemed their Matcha Green Tea White Chocolate perfect for trying next. The now familiar brown card box this time features a matcha whisk and steaming serving of tea along with just a light wash of bright green. 

The chocolate itself has more than a light wash, though. If ruby chocolate was exciting for people who love pink, this green chocolate was exciting for me as a green-lover. Green is my neutral, so I have a lot of green things and immediately started gathering small props I could add to the chocolate's picture. Because white chocolate on its own is essentially colorless, adding matcha to white chocolate does create pretty much the exact shade of matcha powder on the chocolate. It does appear a tad brighter and more neon in the pictures. If I adjusted the angle or the lighting, though, it looked too pale; so I kept with the more neon ones instead because they give a better idea.

The wondrousness of green aside, the other thing that is more exciting about matcha white chocolate than ruby chocolate is of course that we know exactly how this color is obtained. It's white chocolate with matcha powder added to it. As simple as that. No questions about how they got the color or how the flavor will come across. The only other flavor they added is vanilla, which of course you will find in any white chocolate. 

Accompanying the chocolate's buttery, white chocolate aroma is just a hint of green tea. For my background, I drink green tea every morning these days, but I don't really ever have matcha specifically. So while I have less experience with the beverage itself, the basic flavor is pretty much green tea. There are so many types of green tea (I've been enjoying Sencha Superior at home right now) all with their own subtleties, but that basic base flavor is a familiar neutral to me. 

On the first taste, you get both that green tea flavor and the buttery white chocolate. The tea has that fresh and strong sense to it. Again, there are no artificial flavorings here; that isn't how Jelina Chocolatier operates. So there is no faux flavor, and tea being a strong flavor (like coffee) you can definitely taste it. The pairing of that flavor along with the sweetness (there's no getting around the fact that white chocolate by default is always very sweet) and milkiness and creamy texture of the white chocolate is interesting. Usually I don't associate green tea with lattes, but that's definitely the effect here. Traditional matcha is just made with water, but whether water or milk or more common in coffee/tea shops or homes nowadays I don't know. Certainly if you're used to matcha lattes, this chocolate will better replicate that specific experience. 

Either way, though, this is flavored chocolate not a cup of tea, so it's expected to be a fusion of flavor experiences. Using white chocolate versus milk or dark means that the matcha is the focus, and I can't picture it any other way. A truffle with a matcha center, though, would be nice. Hmmm, Valerie Confections makes matcha truffles; perhaps this winter I'll order some. 

Matcha may be a little bit on trend right now (and also be an acquired taste), yet this chocolate is better than trends. The simple and pure ingredients give it quality, and the matcha and cocoa butter speak for themselves as far as flavor. It's a nice treat if you have a bit of a sweet tooth but also have a specific palate (like I do) and don't necessarily love the same sweets as everyone else does. And it would make for a fun gift for a tea lover. 

Jelina Chocolatier: Honey Nougat Milk Chocolate

Last year I had generally favorable comments about Jelina Chocolatier's Crunchy Pecan Caramel Milk Chocolate. I was unsure, however, how much I would seek this brand out in the future given that they don't make their own chocolate--though I did enjoy how they added flavor. I'm back again now with a fairly similar bar, the Honey Nougat Milk Chocolate. 

The simple, natural look of the cardboard box is offset this time with an almost white bee hive and a touch of yellow surrounding it. The style of the chocolate bar is the same, as well. The thick rectangles that look like they would be hiding pouches of soft nougat do not: this is simply solid chocolate with specks of crunchy nougat, which you can see peeking out through the chocolate's surface. The aroma is sweet and mild.

If you also like soft nougat, you have to take a brief moment of grief that there is none here and then move on. The crunchy nougat bits, while not soft, are not bad, nor are they as hard as toffee. They have some stickiness to their texture, too, and their taste (thanks to egg whites) also is distinct from toffee. 

While the bee hive on the front does make me wish for a stronger honey taste, there is honey flavor here. This is still regular milk chocolate sweetened with sugar, so honey is an added flavor rather than the sweetener. And it has the sugar, nougat, and vanilla to compete with. So you could eat a piece casually and not necessarily have honey come to mind. But if you're looking for it, it's very present with its unique, rich flavor. 

The milk chocolate seems to be the same as what was in the other bar. It has plenty of milk and sugar to satisfy the sweet tooth. Yet it is cooler and less buttery than candy bar milk chocolate--and certainly much nicer. It's nice enough that I wouldn't mind a little more cocoa flavor, but I also can't complain about a milk chocolate simply being a milk chocolate. 

All in all, this is a pretty straightforward bar of chocolate. It satisfies cravings for confections, but with better ingredients than one often finds in confections. 

Jelina Chocolatier: Crunchy Pecan Caramel Milk Chocolate

Here is how it happened. I was in line at Barnes & Noble last month. Usually, especially around one holiday or another, there are chocolates around. Godiva's usually the main one; they seem to be good friends with Barnes & Noble. But what caught my attention was that there were not only several different brands in the chocolate display they had this time but at least a couple of those had fair trade labels on them. Fair trade chocolate at Barnes & Noble? Hey, I had to get some even just to let them know that I approved, right?

The first one will provide a nice contrast with the Milk Chocolate Honey Almond Nougat from Tony's Chocolonely last week. We have more of the world tricking me here. Jelina Chocolatier offers a Crunchy Pecan Caramel Milk Chocolate. Now even though the picture shows liquid caramel pouring out, at least the name does use the word "crunchy." And we can assume that the liquid caramel is being poured out onto the pecans in order to harden and then become crunchy rather than staying in a liquid state.

However. The look of the chocolate bar does indeed still imply liquid caramel. Those deep rectangles look like pockets for filling, do they not? Usually that is only the bar's style if it has filling. So I did bite into the first one still expecting liquid caramel. There is no liquid caramel.

What I did find, though, was more of a nice, light toffee. I specify this because not all "crunchy caramels" are alike. I've had a few of them by this point and this one might just be my favorite. I do like toffee; if I'm in a confection shop, I'll probably choose toffee. And the reason why this one feels so nice and light is that Jelina does make better ingredients a priority. Whenever a company chooses to do this, the difference is evident in the flavor.

As far as the chocolate goes, you can probably tell even in the pictures that it is quite pale. I've had some milk chocolates even lighter than this, but not many. I do quite like the look of the chocolate bar despite its implication of free-flowing caramel, but its color does also imply that this is extremely low cocoa content milk chocolate. I can't find the percentage listed anywhere, but the lightness of the cocoa flavor comes across in taste, as well. That being said, this chocolate does taste nice and milky. It almost reminds me more of a Swiss milk chocolate; they tend to make very light, very milky and yet also quite good milk chocolate.

That comparison isn't too far off: Jelina uses chocolate from Belgium in their products. Good thing I chose a milk bar and not a dark because I don't seem to care for Belgian dark chocolate; either they only export the cheap stuff or their style is just too sweet. This chocolate, though, I like. It is very light but it makes for a nice confection-type chocolate bar. I find it much more enjoyable than the milk chocolate from Tony's.

And yes, I've almost forgotten about the pecans because in truth, I did forget about them for the first couple squares that I ate. Sure, there is a nutty taste, but lots of milk chocolate has a nutty taste so I didn't notice anything unusual. There is a crunch to the chocolate, of course, but if there is a separate pecan crunch, it blends in with the toffee-called-caramel. While pecans are wonderful with chocolate and it would have been perhaps nice to get some in here, I also can't say that this chocolate felt lacking without them.

So I'm feeling pretty happy with this bar. Maybe I just like their plain brown card box. Mainly I like that this chocolate feels more like an actual confection: a sweet and milky milk chocolate with light toffee crystals. Whether or not I would try much more from Jelina Chocolatier given that they don't make their own chocolate, I don't know. If a company makes great flavored chocolate, then there's nothing wrong with the fact that they don't also make the chocolate itself. But it tends to feel like I have less to explore. So we'll see.

It also bears noting that Jelina Chocolatier is a Canadian company. Their name in Canada is Galerie au Chocolat; they explain that they chose to use a different name in the U.S. because there was already a similar name out here. So for anyone who happens to be in Canada, there you have it.