Christmas is barely over when people start punishing themselves with diets and detoxes. Not here.
This week I’m going to tell you about chocolate transported using almost no emissions. Cargo sent by sailboat is a growing market. What I love about this, aside from the environmental factor, is that the weather doesn’t care who you are, it’ll get that boat across the oceans when it wants to. Chantal Coady, who is one of the people involved in Fortnum & Mason’s Sailboat Chocolate (£24.95, 180g), told me that the consignment on sale at the moment took months to reach Piccadilly because ‘there were two major storms’ and the ship also sometimes picks up consignments of coffee and rum en route (I’m thinking this would be a good ship to be on). Fortnum’s Sailboat Chocolate is three ‘bars’ of 71%, 85% and 100% cocoa beans from the Caribbean and it is superb. There’s a lovely video of its journey (which includes horse and cart) on the F&M website.
Chocolarder makes divine mocha truffles (£16.50 for 12) with cocoa and coffee beans that left Colombia in February and were collected at Falmouth in May.
Both companies use ships that are fairly old – Chocolarder uses a schooner called De Gallant built in 1916. Fortnum uses a brigantine built in 1943 called Tres Hombres. You can track the location of both at any time, with more accuracy than a normal delivery. As I write, Tres Hombres is docked in the port at Baiona in Spain and De Gallant is in the Bay of Biscay. This is not chocolate to be rushed.
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