News
July 2010
Wow! So much has happened this year! Sorry for taking ages to make any updates to the website, we have been so busy since the opening of the chocolaterie / café / shop in Bruntsfield. Thanks to everyone who has helped us along the way, it's been a grand opening, creating an ongoing home for The Chocolate Tree in one of the city's most enjoyable areas. Come by and enjoy the delights, open 7 days a week, providing an ongoing exploration into the diverse and wonderful world of chocolate.
Hooray for summer! As I write this our little ice cream machine whirrs away in the background producing for the market. Come and see us at the farmers market every Saturday 9am – 2pm for our usual array, and now serving very lovely chocolate ice cream and sorbet. Many thanks to the organisers of Taste festival, Meadows festival, Gigha music festival, Scone game fair and The Royal Highland Show. Yet to come and with great anticipation are The Big Tent festival: 23rd – 25th July, and Traquair Fair: 31st July – 1st August. Tickets for The Big Tent are available from us at the shop in Bruntsfield.
Our ganache experimentations in the kitchen over the past few months has been wild and yet careful, new favourites are the sea salted caramels, absinthe & peppermint, blackcurrant, mango & chilli, beer, blueberry, wild mushroom, rosemary & seasalt, we have even created a bit of a marmite truffle liking amongst some customers, it's strangely pleasing, and I wouldn't have said I was the worlds biggest marmite fan, until now.
The shop in Bruntsfield also offers a variety of some truly artisan cakes, made with care and using some of the best fine and locally sourced ingredients. Friederike's talents on this side of the kitchen have flowered since we opened the shop, her baking is highly creative yet almost scientific in its attention to details and flavours. Drop by to indulge in a slice or share one with friends.
3 new bars coming up, look out for these in the shops:
Rooibos Chai, a mellow blend of tea & spice, blended carefully with smooth organic milk chocolate.
White Cocoa Nib, a contrast of sweet indulgent organic white chocolate with flavoursome, earthy dark Ecuadorian nibs.
Dark Forest, the Black Forest's big brother, a fruity explosion in extra dark chocolate: brambles, blueberries and raspberries.
Unfortunately we have seen a slight increase in prices this year, all of our raw ingredients seem to be going up, and the cost of running a premise in this part of Edinburgh pretty astronomical. We are proud to be swimming against the tide, having provided 12 new part-time positions and 1 new fulltime position with us since we opened the shop, and managing (if only just!) to keep the whole thing stable. We are still trying to offer the best value for money for a handcrafted organic product, and hope you find our prices pretty good in comparison.
Many thanks to all the new staff! We have seen some amazing characters come through and help us out at the shop and the kitchen, also some fond farewells to those moving on their next station. We receive dozens of C.Vs, and are sorry we don't have more positions available. If you are interested in a position with us then please email me with an extraordinary explanation of what you would bring to our little enterprise!
Cacao nibs and beans
Although we don't make our own chocolate from bean – be wary of chocolatiers claiming to 'make their chocolate', as what most of us do is source and work with fine chocolate – we have sourced some amazing beans and nibs. These are organic Ecuadorian Trinitario Arriba beans and nibs. Use them for smoothies, eat them raw, roast them with game, sprinkle them on fruit, and even make your own raw chocolate with them! This 'super food' is chocolate in one of its most raw states, and is incredibly good for the body and mind. Suggested reading: Naked Chocolate
Chocolate makers, who do make their own chocolate from bean, are a different breed and one day we would like to count ourselves among them, but to invest in such an operation is clearly going to take time, unless we bury ourselves in debt, those we recommend trying chocolate from are: Micheal Cluizel, Amadei, Bonnat, Willy Harcourt, The Mast Brothers, Original Beans and The Grenada Chocolate Company. We'll be considering sourcing some of these for the shop soon... In the meantime many thanks for supporting us - we hope you are enjoying the produce, if you have any suggestions, ideas, complaints or compliments please feel free to get in touch.
2nd October
A big thanks to everyone who enjoyed our space at the festivals, we had a great time! Hard work but worthwhile, we came through safe and sound. Here is a little video from the Big Tent Festival at Falkland Palace:
We brushed with Royalty at the Gathering in Holyrood Park, Edinburgh, Camilla Parker Bowles has been at one with the Ginger Buddha.
The summer festivals are now fading away in our rear view mirror, we look to the road with a tear in our eye but a firm foot to the pedal, steering us forward into the Christmas festivities to come...
Welcoming Kendall Ross to our team! All the way from the Appalachian countryside of Pennsylvania, we bumped into him touring the festivals bringing ancient knowledge and roots tradition back to it's origins in Scotland.
We'll be exhibiting at Foodies, Assembly rooms, Edinburgh. You can catch us the BBC Good Food Show, SECC in Glasgow. We'll be dotted about all over the place at Christmas fayres and of course down braving the elements at our regular spots in the farmers markets, new to our farmers markets attendance are Howgate and Balerno, both on the outskirts of town. Come and support these community organized events, helping to bring sense to city society. See you there!
9th June
Well! here we are at the beginning of summer. The festivals have begun and the sun has shone down on us with all it's might in the past weeks. This is great news unless you are trying to sell chocolate from a stand that is pretty much open on all sides. However we have managed to have avoid melting much of anything, and what does get in the way of a ray will still find it's way to a tastebud somewhere.
We just came back from the Meadows festival, that was fantastic, thanks to everyone for coming down and supporting us, we hope you all enjoyed the waffles! And if you heard any ice cream rumours I can confirm that we are experimenting with the most chocolatey ice cream this side of anywhere. More of that to come... don't expect to buy it online though! Come down and see us at the farmers markets, every Saturday but the first on Castle Terrace.
In other news we have been looking out for a place that will provide our transient chocolatiering with a more rooted foundation. We would love to open a branch in Edinburgh, and are searching high and low for the right location, but the truth is it's a bit of a minefield. There are of course plenty of good property deals to be had, but which one is right for us?
Look out on the stall for some new bars, one in paticular we know you have been waiting for; Dark Raspberry! Other latest flavours include dark Bramble & Cardamon, milk chocolate with Lemon and the combining of two existing flavours into one exquisite combination; Cranberry & Almond. Mmm...
27th February
Spring is in the air!
Come and see us at the farmers markets to view our fantastic Easter range of eggs & bunnies.
We have an organic egg, made with a top quality thick shell in a stripey pattern consisting of milk, white, and dark chocolate with 5 milk chocolate mini eggs and 5 milk chocolate mini bunnies waiting inside.
A Single origin egg, The outer shell is made from a 75% cocoa content Tanzanian chocolate & inside you will find 5 mini eggs of Manjari (64% cocoa content), Uganda (80% cocoa content) and Grenada (71% cocoa content). The Grenada in particular is our kind of chocolate, it's coming from an organic certified cooperative of farmers in the Caribbean, I highly recommend taking a moment to watch this little movie about them:
And we will have our Truffle Egg, a thick outer shell of organic chocolate and a bag of 10 chocolates waiting inside. This one won't be available till very near Easter due to the fresh cream content.
Last but not at all least we will have a wide range of bunnies, mini eggs (perfect for making an Easter hunt with) and medium sized eggs in a variety of spring splendour.
Sorry that we are unable to have Easter produce available online this year, we have been researching into environmentally friendly protective packaging but there is not a great deal out there. We wrap our eggs in cellophane with a cardboard base which is simple, minimalistic and better for the environment, but unfortunatley not protective enough to send in the post.
31st January 2009
Happy New Year!
We hope you had a good festive season and enjoyed the chocolate. We had a very busy time producing it all and keeping on top of all the orders, quite a thrill. After it had all calmed down we had a much needed relaxing and peaceful time with our new baby daughter Roslyn. At 9 weeks she is already familiar to the aromas coming from the kitchen.
New Products
To start the New Year we are releasing a stream of new products to keep things exciting. We have found a good source for freeze dried fruits, and will be introducing the 'Black Forest' bar and the 'Raspberry' bar in white chocolate. In milk chocolate we have the 'Banana & Cinnamon' bar, a yummy combination. And in dark chocolate the 'Strawberry and Pepper' bar, exquisite. If you haven't tried grinding some black pepper onto strawberries before I recommend it, as soon as they are back in season. All of these fruits are 100% natural, no added flavourings etc. However we have yet been unable to find an organic source for these, so the bars are missing their UK3 certification for now.
In Extra dark chocolate we also have two often requested bars: Peppermint, and Orange. Both are made with oils infused through the chocolate and crystallized pieces on top. I particulary like the peppermint, very dark and smooth with a lovely minty taste.
Single Origin Bars
Also new are our first two Single origin bars. Single origin means all of the cocoa beans used to make the chocolate have been sourced from the same country, and typically a lot of care has gone into the production. If a producer rushes the processes involved with their chocolate, to gain a quicker turnover and generally more profit, then the chocolate will lose a lot of its character. If the producer takes time and care to make the chocolate then the results can be amazing, this is usually the case with single origin. We are sometimes asked at the market if we have a chocolate with a very high cocoa content, we now bring you the 'Uganda 80%', a wonderful dark cocoa taste and hints of nuts, mushrooms and a good overall earthiness. For those less inclined for very dark chocolate we have Valhrona's 'Manjari', a 64% cocoa content bar, with an exquisite fruity overtone, absolutely stunning. I would recommend Manjari to anyone interested in the exploration of really good chocolate.
26th October 2008
First of all let us say thanks to all of our customers and everyone we have met since the beginning, it has been a fully engaging and adventurous experience and we are set to continue bringing you the finest in artisan chocolate.
We have had a wonderful time making all this happen, and everything we put in comes back to us eventually, it has been great! We do very much value all of your feedback and please do feel welcome to drop us a line with any comments about the produce, if theres something you'd like to see different then let us know and we'll do our best. We found the mango slices were just too tough and so we chopped them up into nice little squares; We are going back to the old cut up chunks of crystallised ginger because the little cubes just don't pack the same gingery punch! We have taken away the seeds from the chilli bar to make the experience a little smoother... All of this is thanks to your feedback, and our, extensive, product testing...
We have been all over the place during summer, bringing our travelling chocolaterie to as many events as we could fit into the calendar, all of that was very hard work, but it was a lot of fun too! Many many thanks to the crew that came with us to Sunrise festival and worked so hard to get us in and very quickly out of what was complete mayhem (spoilt by flash flooding) you were fantastic!
In the meantime the chocolate bar range is growing with our new bars 'Maple & Pecan' and 'Cardamon' soon to be available at the markets and on the shop shelves, in the run up to Christmas this year watch out for the 'Winter Spice' bar. This has a warming gingerbread feel to it, and I am told the spices will actually help the digestion of hard worked Christmas bellies!
We have welcomed Ian Copley on board, our fantastic chocolate tree surgeon, and Pam Steele with her wonderful talents and experience all the way from South Africa. Now we have established ourselves in the new kitchen we are feeling little sparks of creativity flying around, we are continually share new ideas and recipes in the kitchen, more recently we have made the 'Ginger Buddhas' and the 'Absinthe Masks' (currently only avaiable at the stall), in line for the future we will be working on more exquisite truffle centres.. we shall continue to work with new ingredients and exciting combinatons...
On a more sour note we regret increases in the price of our source materials have forced the retail prices up, not much though, and we still feel we are offering excellent value for a quality product. Prices will always be best on the market stalls, and if you buy direct from the producers then we get a better deal too!
Farmers markets are happening all over the place and they need your support, this is where the best, locally produced, not mass produced food, can be found and provides a superb alternative to the supermarkets. We encourage all of you to take time with your shopping and support a farmers market near you! What better than to be able to meet the producers of our food face to face!
Talking of farmers market we will now be at the Edinburgh one every fortnight, catch us there with many of Scotlands other finest producers. If you are having an event why not get in touch, we will do our best to attend as long as its within a reasonable distance.
Thanks for listening, I'll be using this page to keep up to date news on products and places to find us, here are some of the markets we will be attending in the run up to Christmas:
The BBC Good Food Show
SECC Glasgow, 31st Oct - 2nd Nov
glasgow.bbcgoodfoodshow.com
Chuffs Christmas Fair
Arniston House, Gorebridge
11th Nov - 13th Nov
Save the Children Fundraiser
Marine Hotel, North Berwick
Sunday 23rd Nov
Ford Victorian Christmas Market
Village of Ford
Sunday 30th Nov
Cloudhouse Christmas Fair
Cloudhouse Cafe, Stow
Friday 5th Dec, 6am - 9pm
Peebles Christmas Craft Fair
Burgh Hall, Peebles
Saturday 6th Dec, 10am - 4pm
The Twelve Tastes of Christmas
Knowes Farm Shop, East Lothian
20th Dec - 23rd Dec
See you there!
Ali
PS Here are some the things you have been saying:
"We are both "foodies" and have no hesitation in saying that you have an outstanding product which is far superior to most of the mass produced confection on the market and you deserve to suceed. We will spread the word on your behalf. Keep up the good work!"
Leonard & Carol Mair
Just a quick line to say that I recently bought a bar of your dark chocolate with chilli at the Farmers Market in Edinburgh, and it was the nicest chocolate I've had in a very long time! Thank you, I will be buying more!
Alison Glover
The Chocolate Tree is the perfect place to start, their hand-crafted truffles, each individually decorated, are like little drops of heaven.
Its chocolate bars are certainly not your average, as fruit, nuts and spices from around the world are mixed with delicious organic chocolate to create a divine treat. Try the extra dark chocolate bar with 72 per cent cocoa.
SCOTSMAN 20 Aug 08
If chocolate did grow on trees I'd want it to be as delicious as this. The Chocolate Tree are very special, because not only do they make some of the best organic, fairtrade chocolate I've ever tasted... they make it four miles from my house!
Eliza - www.hippyshopper.com