If anything will teach you to slow down and enjoy a deliciously gorgeous piece of chocolate, this certainly will.  This creamy milk chocolate won’t allow you to rush it – it will demand you to slow down and enjoy it slowly.

The flavour of the chocolate is subtle – so subtle that it is almost lost to the flavour of the dark sugar and creamy milk.  These flavours are so strong as to almost overtake all chocolate flavour.  When it hits the chocolate is delightful and light, with none of the bitterness some other chocolate can have.  These beans have not been over fermented at all.

This bar is a delight and while I might love Askinosie an awful lot, this bar is arguing with my taste buds for supremacy.

Earl Grey Tea chocolate – This chocolate had the lovely scent of dark chocolate but none of the lush bergamot scent.  Biting into this chocolate releases the most lovely delicate flavour of real Earl Grey tea.  It is subtle and delicious and not overwhelming.  I could eat a box of these!

Mulled Wine chocolate – Once again, this chocolate does not reveal its interior from outside with the delicate scent of the Amedei chocolate used the only scent.  Biting in to it releases the flavour of the jelly mulled wine interior with the chocolate ganache.  Yummy and delicious, this is a lovely chocolate.

Sea Salt Caramel – different from other sea salt caramels I’ve tried in the past, this is a thick base chocolate with a liquid caramel interior closest in flavour to Kraft caramels from my childhood.  The caramel oozes out in deliciousness making you gobble the whole chocolate up.

Whoops… looks like I munched these before I had a chance to photograph them!

Problem with the shop is Soma also has fantastic chocolate.  It’s as though they know they have great chocolate and so think they can treat customers like crap because they’ll always get them back – or they’ll survive on the tourist trade.

The Dark Fire bar with its chilli was surprising.  Unlike other chocolates with chilli, this warmth isn’t the chilli of dried flakes added to chocolate and hammering your taste buds suddenly before catching in your throat.  This is a gentle warmth that delicately surrounds the mouth and comes away cleam, without a dried powdery flavour hanging in the mouth.

The Black Science Madagascar 70% (batch M11) was delicious.  Letting a square melt in your mouth was a delicious experience that surrounded your tongue in a balanced experience of fruit and bean and delicious flavour.  Unlike some single origin chocolates that tend to activate only a single area of the mouth and result in a somewhat flat flavour, this is delicious.

If possible, avoid going in to the shop or if you do, expect to be treated like something the staff scrapped off their shoe.  Much as I loathe to admit it, the chocolate is really good.  Since their site is flash it’ll be impossible to order online so you’re stuck with the shop.  Forget it – order yourself some Askinosie chocolate instead.

This lovely egg comes with a keepsake egg cup and spoon which makes it a lasting gift.

Lovers of Paul A Young’s sea salted caramels must think Christmas has come early with the release of the rather large sea salt caramel egg. Larger than a Cadbury’s crème egg, it is also slightly larger than a traditional breakfast egg but not by much.

The egg comes in an egg cup with a lovely egg spoon to scoop out all that lovely sea salt caramel. The chocolate used is a delight. Delicious and lots of it, the chocolate encases the rather extremely generous filling. Hungry as I was, and celebrating a few milestones in my life as I was, I still could not finish the whole egg. No bad thing, a bit of cling film and I can report it was as nummy later as when fresh.

This is any chocolate lover’s dream and must have. Forget that cheap chocolate, forget boxes of Easter crème eggs, forget fancy silly overpriced bunnies, get the chocolate lover in your life this egg. They’ll love you for it. I love the person who sent me mine lots and lots now – YUM!

The fresh basil chocolate was a bit of a shock but I got used to it. It was a small chocolate and the filling was quite green but still pleasant.

The coffee and passion fruit chocolate was an extreme delight.  The perfect marriage between tart and strong and chocolate.  A lovely delight and the perfect flavour balance.

The salted muscavado truffle was strongly flavoured and I wasn’t expecting it but it was a delight as well.  The flavour was strong but balanced.

The absence of dairy made the chocolate really stand out and a delight to try.  I highly recommend these chocolates

Artisan du Chocolat's Sea Salted Caramel Balls

Sea salted caramels seem to have become a popular confection among chocolate makers and Artisan du Chocolat are no exception.  The ones bought for me arrived in a white box within which was a nice brown plastic tub with a screw top lid.

Unscrewing the lid of this delightful container of chocolate was like opening the door to a chocolate shop.  I was met with the delightful scent of good quality chocolate.  It enveloped me and seemingly wafted through the room, following me as I sat down to try one.

These small balls are just the right size to pop in your mouth and enjoy.  They do need to be chewed as letting them melt takes forever but the yumminess is not harmed.   On biting through the outer chocolate shell, your mouth is bathed in a delightfully runny dark caramel.  With hints of molasses the caramel is strongly flavoured and delightful. It mixes with the chocolate in your mouth and is fantastic.

The chocolate itself is a bit flat in flavour which is slightly disappointing.  It lacks any distinguishing characteristics and is a bit grainy.  It would have been nice to have had a better quality chocolate.

I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this chocolate to anyone as a gift or as a treat.

Stubbe chocolates creates some of the best chocolates by pairing good quality chocolate they create themselves in the back of the shop with both traditional and non-traditional flavours.  The one chocolate which stood out for me was the blood orange chocolate which has a slightly sharp tang without being sour.

The special milk chocolate truffle had a unique sugar fronting which I thought would make the chocolate far too sweet but in fact was perfect when savouring or chewing the chocolate.

The cappuccino was a triumph of coffee flavouring, which was for once not overpowered by the sweetness of the chocolate.  The white chocolate was used masterfully here to sweeten the coffee without it tasting of nothing but sugar the covered in a beautifully balances dark chocolate.

I wish I could get these chocolates more regularly but have to settle for my annual trips to Toronto.

I highly recommend this chocolate shop and would be confidant buying any chocolates from here as a special gift.

Chocolate and heat do not mix.  So too would I say chocolate and a bad attitude or chocolate and the worst directions humanely possible.  Soma may have good chocolate but they have seriously bad attitude.

It is quite possible that Soma does not want new business and is happy to live solely off of the tourist buses and then repeat local custom.  It does not seem to be at all set up for casual visitors. In fact Soma was almost impossible to findin life and online, and only dedicated Soma fans saved me from missing the shop (something I partially wish I had).

I will not argue that of all chocolate in Toronto that I have tried, Soma chocolate was the best.  The complexity of flavour with the high quality of the underlying chocolate married perfectly for me to create a brilliant chocolate.  The complex nature of the base of many of the chocolate was superb.  That is perhaps why they are happy to remain hidden.

When trying chocolates, I always find it helpful to discover the best chocolate by asking the experts – the people who made them.  Chocolate is individual and each person will like different flavours.  Every milk chocolate truffle is slightly different and the best person to ask what their crowning glory is, is the chocolate maker.

I asked here, as I had at many other chocolate shops in the UK, Toronto, Amsterdam and other major cities for their signature chocolate.  The one chocolate of the lot that I, as a reviewer, could take and hold up as the prime example of the mastery of the chocolate makers art.  I was pointed to the sea salt caramel.

At the suggestion for the third time that day that a sea salt caramel was the pinnacle of their art, I did wilt and request an alternate suggestion and was met with irritation.  Upon trying this sea salt caramel, I found the salt on the top of the chocolate to be too intense, the caramel flat and lacklustre and the chocolate of a middling quality.  It was absolutely nothing to recommend.

The balsamic vinegar chocolate was much more pleasurable with a tangy bite and yet not too much acidity balanced by a darker fruity chocolate.  The cocoa chosen married well with the balsamic vinegar to create a subtle and pleasurable combination of flavours.  Not so for the douglas fir but what can one expect from a chocolate named after a pine tree.  It was intense and overpowering and I could not finish it.

All in all I found Soma well worth the trip but I would avoid engaging the staff in conversation.  They have little to no knowledge of the product they are selling.

After being a pastry chef for 25 years at Michelin starred restaurants, including a stint in Spain for 5 years, Damian was an expert at working in chocolate.  Spain forced him to rethink how people made chocolate, and combined with his realisation that British palettes were changing he decided to run his own chocolate based business.  He realised that cream changed the flavour of chocolate and rather than seeking a dairy-free alternative to existing chocolates, he created new flavours, new experiences and a new way of enjoying chocolate.  He knows that chocolate changes flavour as ingredients are added and that is why he doesn’t use milk or cream.

I remain fairly conservative in my chocolate outlook but Damian had me as a somewhat captive audience and as such, he went through the full range of mouth experiences with me.  He believes that our tastes in the UK are changing.  His chocolates are at the forefront of that change and he’s working hard to create delicious tastes for everyone.

We started with a ‘pistachio with acidic yogurt’ morsel.  It was an immediate hit of sour then went through to sweet then you got the pistachio nut flavour at the very end.  Surprising and extremely more-ish.  I can see people having to eat many of these at a party.

Salted Crunchy Peanut was the next surprise.  Completely overwhelming the scent or flavour of the chocolate, the salted peanut flavour was the first hit through the nose, then the saltiness hits as you bite and it is finished off with that massive peanut flavour which almost nothing can beat.

The Cloud was next and talk about heavenly.  Blueberry and violet it was a crunchy yet chewy middle light as a cloud.  The flavours are subtle but pleasant and without the harsh artificial flavour sometimes encountered.

At this point, Damian reminds me that with his chocolates, the actual chocolate is not the ‘ego’.  Rather, the filling is the most important part and the chocolate adds that extra rounding dimension.  He uses Amano chocolate and assures me that his use of high quality chocolate enhances all of them – including the flavours which overwhelm.

Jasmine Tea was a delight and I may have to simply buy myself and everyone I know a box of these.  The jasmine tea is not synthetic, as it so often it.  Synthetic, or even essential oil jasmine, has a distinctive flavour that is immediately obvious.  Not so this chocolate, made from a tea which is left for 5 nights next to the blooming jasmine flowers, infusing it with the flavour of the pollen of the jasmine flower, not the essential oil.  The tea is cold infused and this is what gives it the unique flavour.  That and the fact no cream is used and so the delicate jasmine flavour can blossom on your mouth

The penultimate chocolate was a delicious fresh mint.  A chocolate made with fresh mint has an added dimension of the chlorophyll clearly flavouring the chocolate.  It is easy to destroy the flavour and bruise the mint and so to get that flavour in to a chocolate is quite a feat.  This mind chocolate was subtle but delightful.  An added dimension to mind for mint chocolate lovers.

Passion fruit and Coffee rounded off the tasting trial. Having bravely withstood the crowd, I was rewarded with a unique blend of strong coffee and sweet passion fruit.  Coffee flavour outside, strong and sweet passion fruit inside, then another hit of coffee as you chew the grinds.  Strong but pleasant.