Savouring chocolate’s true, complex flavours
Soul Chocolate’s handmade fare sources beans direct from farms, meant for tasting, not gorging
People now understand that wine is not just for getting tipsy, but offers a complex taste experience. Even if you can’t get hints of raspberry or hazelnut or long dry finishes, you understand that someone else legitimately can.
Now, you can do the same with chocolate. Not while inhaling the Mars bar you grabbed on the subway to boost your blood sugar, but while savouring a small but oh-so-perfect bar of Soul Chocolate.
Get one at the chocolate-making company’s new public outpost on Gerrard St. near Broadview Ave. Chocolate maker Katie Wilson runs the ever-whirling machines in the back while husband and business partner Kyle Wilson serves coffee drinks, hot chocolate and chocolate shots ($3) in the front. (He’s brewing Detour coffee at the moment, but expects to rotate suppliers as often as monthly.)
The six types of Soul Chocolate bars sell for $5.50 for a 28-gram bar ($5 online). It’s meant for tasting, not gorging. “We source beans direct from the farms. We pay them more,” Katie says. She makes her bars thin so they melt easily and cover more of the palate.
Choose from Madagascar (the big seller), Tanzania, Papua New Guinea, Venezuela, Dominican Republic and Ecuador origin flavours. Each bar comes with tasting notes. Madagascar is described as jammy, with red fruit and citrus flavours.
The couple — who both hail from the Niagara region — worked for many years in restaurants; Katie as a baker while Kyle was a barista.
The Wilsons went travelling in 2010 and came across chocolate makers in Australia and New Zealand.
“I was blown away. I didn’t know real chocolate could taste like this,” Katie says. “Everyone needs to experience this.” Back in Canada, Katie got a small refiner — the tool that gradually grinds down cacao beans — and began making her own small batches.
She took the professional chocolatier course at George Brown College starting in 2011, and kept refining her from-scratch recipes at home. (Chocolatier work often uses pre-made chocolate, but she wanted to make it right from the bean.)
In fall 2015, while Kyle was running the coffee program at Queen St. E.’s Impact Kitchen, he secured a corner of the restaurant’s ample kitchen.
Katie would work all day roasting beans, winnowing (removing the husks), refining (a process that takes several days), flavouring (she adds only organic cane sugar), aging (two weeks seemed best), tempering and then pouring the chocolate into custom moulds.
At the end of his shift, Kyle would help her in the laborious process.
Meanwhile, his ample contacts in the coffee world helped land clients. They started doing a monthly mailout coffee and chocolate pairing service, then moved to selling bars to retailers (mainly cafés) in the city and beyond, and direct to customers online. They now have 130 wholesale clients, and make the pillow chocolates for the Broadview Hotel.
But having their own kitchen, selling coffee and chocolate, was always the goal. They found this space, which features great foot traffic and a fair rent — plus they live nearby.
They opened in September and are now making about 45 kilograms of chocolate a week. Already, having a retail space has inspired the couple to try new things, such as creating an advent calendar and chocolate tasting flights. By next year, they hope to be supplying high-end restaurants and baking operations with bulk baking chocolate.
But larger plans will see Soul Chocolate set up a production facility and storefront in Niagara, ideally on the wine trail.
It’s another move to promote the big, thoughtful taste potential of chocolate not just in Toronto, but beyond.