Dandelion Chocolate, Tokyo
Dandelion, a bean-to-bar chocolate company based in San Francisco, has ruined me. There was my pre-Dandelion chocolate life where I was happily exploring the world of artisanal chocolates, tempted by the colourful wrappers, quirky narratives, and exotic pairings—sourdough crumbs with olive oil, pink pepper and cardamom... Some were delightful; a few were more intriguing than delectable. Then I tasted my first Dandelion single-origin chocolate bar and nothing has tasted the same since—the complexity of flavours, the restrained use of sugar, how it melts smoothly in your mouth even without the use of soy lecithin, the pure chocolate hit you get. Post-Dandelion, nothing but Dandelion will do. Even when other artisanal chocolatiers have managed to coax from their beans a comparable flavour profile, a slightly grainy texture or a refusal to melt well will let them down. Now, only when my stash has dwindled do I bother to look at another company’s chocolate.
For those of you who live in the US (but not near their shops in the Bay Area or Las Vegas), Dandelion is available online and will deliver to you. For those of us who live outside of the US, it’s hard luck because they do not deliver internationally. If, however, you live in Asia and are within reach of Tokyo, you have been given a lifeline. Dandelion has a factory and café in Tokyo, where you can purchase bars developed by the Japanese team (and a few selected bars from the San Francisco team). Located in Kuramae, the café is a little off the beaten track for most tourists, but if you are a chocolate fiend, a stop here is an absolute must.
While I find every single Dandelion bar excellent, I do have a slight preference for the ones created by the Japanese team (the only exception are the San Francisco bars created by Nate, who I find has a delicate and sophisticated palette). The Japanese bars tend to be a little subtler and more attuned to the herbal and floral notes in the beans. The ones developed in San Francisco are more unabashedly candy-like. Think caramel and fudge. Each bar has the name of the chocolatier responsible for the roasting of the beans and comes with very accurate tasting notes. For example, the Mililani bar (70% cacao), sourced from Green Farms Hawaii, is supposed to have notes of lilikoi (passionfruit), which it amazingly does. It was the first time that the idea of terroir in chocolate has been made real to me.
No matter the differences in style, this is a chocolate bar that is conducive to a zuihitsu state of being. The quality of chocolate-making is so high that to do it justice you have to slow down and savour each shift of flavour in the square melting gently in the warmth of your mouth. It’s a delicious way to bring yourself to attend to life’s small pleasures, and it never fails to bring delight. A Dandelion bar is sheer chocolate heaven for your taste buds as well as your soul.
