Find out how the best Tea-Infused Chocolate in the world is made!
When you think of a classic Advent calendar, you probably think of little chocolate figurines. Our Tea for Tomorrow Advent calendar also contains eight tea-infused chocolates as well as unique teas.
But not all chocolate is the same! So what makes our products different from the usual chocolate Advent calendar?
We wanted to create nothing less than the best tea chocolate in the world. To do this, we selected eight of our most popular teas, which we combined with the best chocolates in the world from our partner Original Beans using a new process developed by master chocolatier Kevin Kugel. You will find all the varieties in this calendar! Find out below what makes the chocolates so special.
Less is more
What actually defines chocolate? Most lists of ingredients are endless: cocoa blends, lecithins, vanilla, cocoa butter of unknown origin and industrial milk... But the best chocolate doesn't need so many ingredients, it needs the right ones. That's why Original Beans chocolates contain a maximum of four ingredients: Organic cocoa beans, organic cocoa butter, animal-friendly Swiss cow's milk and fair-trade cane sugar.
So that you can enjoy this difference as intensely as possible, we recommend that you do not chew the chocolate, but let it melt slowly on your tongue. The high-quality cocoa butter melts slowly at body temperature and the diverse flavors gradually develop.
How does the tea get into the chocolate?
A major challenge during development was the balance of flavors. How do we combine tea and chocolate without one dominating the other?
The solution is an innovative process: To do this, the tea is boiled, extracted into liquid and then the chocolate itself is used as a flavor carrier. This is how cocoa butter tea was born! Although the technique is a little more complex, it ensures that tea and chocolate complement each other perfectly without one drowning out the other.
A master in his field: Kevin Kugel
Behind the perfect balance of tea and chocolate is a true professional: Kevin Kugel, a passionate chocolatier. He is not only a trained chef, master confectioner and business economist, but above all a true artist when it comes to chocolate. We developed the process for producing the cocoa butter tea together with him.
Few people know chocolate as well as he does: in 2013, he became German Chocolatier Champion. In 2014, he fulfilled his dream of opening his own chocolate factory and has been creating true masterpieces ever since.
But of course, an end product is always the sum of its parts. For the best chocolate, it is not enough to have the best tea and the best process; you also need the best raw materials. And this is where our partner Original Beans comes in.
Responsibility as a corporate purpose: Original Beans
- A plus for the climate: Original Beans is a climate-positive, i.e. CO2-negative company. This means that it removes more CO₂ from the atmosphere than is generated during production - an impressive 15,221 tons in 2023 alone!
- More than fair: Original Beans sets its own standards. The products do not carry the Fairtrade seal because the criteria were not strict enough for the company. Instead, Original Beans sets its own standards and sources its beans directly from producers who are not only among the best, but also among the best paid in the world. This is because Original Beans pays a multiple of the usual prices and builds long-term, trusting partnerships that create the basis for sustainable cocoa cultivation.
- Tree by tree, bar by bar: Original Beans has committed to planting a tree in the cocoa's region of origin for every bar of chocolate sold - not in monocultures, but in the midst of the diverse, species-rich environment. This protects the ecosystem and thus the habitat of rare animal and plant species.
- A colorful mix: All beans come from cocoa trees that are not grown in monocultures, but in the middle of the rainforest. In this way, the valuable cocoa plants provide an incentive to protect the rainforest.
The journey to the origin of your chocolate
Did you know that not all cocoa is the same? As with most plants, there are very different types that produce very different flavor profiles. Original Beans produces single-origin chocolates. So you can discover the different cocoa beans and taste how their origin influences their flavor! Beans from three regions were used for our chocolates:
- The white chocolates in our Advent calendar contain fine Trinitario cocoa butter from organic cocoa gardens in the golden valley of the Río Yuna in the Dominican Republic. Refined with creamy Swiss Alpine milk, this chocolate is a real treat that will transport you to tropical climes.
- The Arriba cocoa bean grows in the province of Esmeraldas in Ecuador. Here, the Mache Chindul cloud forest stretches along the Pacific coast. “Esmeraldas” is Spanish for emeralds, and the name says it all - the region is a real paradise for hundreds of rare animal and plant species! Among others, the Imbabura tree frog, the Mache glass frog and the brown-headed sloth live here. Chocolate cultivation protects the valuable ecosystem and irreplaceable biodiversity.
- Some of the chocolates are made from Amelonado cocoa. This is grown in Africa's oldest national park, the Virunga National Park, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Long periods of exploitation and armed conflict have made the region one of the poorest in the world, but there is hope: the “Femmes de Virunga” project supported by Original Beans helps women to improve their social and economic position – for example through literacy courses, management and entrepreneurial training and an interactive radio.
Have you got the urge to try our chocolates in advance? You can also buy all varieties individually!
