These are absolutely adorable with their babies holding fruits around the outside and bold gold bowl of fruit on the cover.  Prestat certainly knows how to make an impression with their boxes

I’m not sure how deliberate the pairings were.  I cut them all open to try and tell what I was eating but it was difficult to tell.  The blackcurrant was absolutely tart against the dark chocolate but I think I liked it better than the (I think) lemon in milk chocolate though the (I think) passion fruit in white chocolate was nice.

What I enjoyed about this box was the variety.  The flavours were, at times, slightly different than I had expected.  I have just had some Demarquette caramels though so I think this is slightly colouring my view of the flavours.  I’ve gone from something with a short shelf life to something you can safely give as a gift or take with you to deliver as a holiday gift.

Overall I think that for someone who enjoys a bit of fruit jellies in their lives, this is a beautifully presented box of delicious, tart but sweet jellies.  They are well made jellies, dissolving evenly in your mouth, and have strong flavours (though maybe not as distinct after eating five or six… whoops!).

Prestat, I have to admit, is not the first place I’d think of looking for single origin chocolate and yet here I am tasting some single origin dark chocolate from them.  These buttons come in a really unassuming traditional Prestat box of pink and gold and I’m surprised it doesn’t talk more about origins.

Madagascar is one of my favourite chocolate origins. Often rich, fruity and fascinating with infrequent  floral notes singling through a sea of rich deep chocolaty fudge notes.  Depending on the treatment of the bean, the roasting and conching, the beans show through different flavours.  Growing conditions, regions and soil also play a part in changing the flavour as does fermenting and whatnot.

This chocolate has a slightly blunted edge, with a slightly drying, almost chalky initial edge to the chocolate, it mellows into a slightly dry fruit and leaves a flavour of dark chocolate for awhile in your mouth with the fruit coming through more clearly as time progresses.  It takes a long time for the chocolate to fade.

It is an interesting dark chocolate button.  While not a personal favourite it is only because I have 3kgs of chocolate at my disposal right now.  Prestat is more widely available than many chocolates and the single origin chocolate is actually pretty nice.  I think that it would likely be a good introduction to a step-up in quality chocolate.

In a pink and gold Prestat box with little fanfare, a single origin milk chocolate button is listed on the Prestat website.  I have to admit that I chose this because it is rare that the somewhat earthy and yet still fruity Arriba Nacional bean is used in milk chocolate.  The flavours are bold in this bean but it is really easy to end up with something too earthy or too bitter.

I’ve had some stunning treatments of beans from Equador from Askinosie, Kokoa Collection and others but Prestat’s single origin chocolates were new to me. While they are milk chocolate and slightly sweeter than I’m used to, it is still a single origin button and still an interesting addition ot the Prestat range.

The chocolate itself does have a slightly vanilla flavour and the flavour of the milk powder does come through a bit but you aren’t going to be analysing it when you’re eating it now, are you? The milk chocolate is sweet, but not too sweet, and the consistency isn’t too sticky in the mouth.  It melts well and tastes nice.  I’m not getting the red fruits I’d expect but there is a slight flavour of something there – I’m not sure quite what but it is distinctive.

All in all a surprising single origin chocolate button and I’m quite glad I got to try it.  If you want to get some nice, high quality milk chocolate buttons, this is absolutely an amazing find.  Order some up and have them on hand always. You can get these direct from the Prestat website or from Prestat stockists.

Thin, delicate, and filled with earl grey tea, these wafers are “wafer thin” (to quote Monty Python).  I was lucky enough to get a box of these and I tucked in to them with a voracious appetite.  Well, I took one, broke it in half and popped it into my mouth.  I’d like to give the impression, however, that I ate lots.

The chocolate itself is sweet and filled with little bits of earl grey tea.  As you can see in the picture, each disk of thin milk chocolate is liberally studded with tea leaves of the Earl Grey variety (that is, black tea flavoured with bergamot). This infuses the chocolate with a delightful tea flavour and a hit of bergamot.

I have to admit that these are sweet but I think that they are balanced off nicely by the tea actually.  I let them melt in my mouth and ate about three so they got a little bitter by the end but really they aren’t that bad overall and maybe if you don’t stuff face like I did and are a little more lady-like (as I started out with the first half, before I then pigged out) you’ll not get that slightly bitter tea edge.

It’s a really unique and fun chocolate and despite the large number and really delicate and thin nature of the chocolate none of mine were broken that I could find in the box so you’ll always be sure if you give them as a gift that you’ll be giving something which will arrive in perfect shape.

There’s a chocolate for every reason in here.  I just found a penny, I had a great hair day, I have a coffee and need a chocolate… any reason you can think of a reason for chocolate, there’s a chocolate in here for it.

Much like the Prestat mint box, this box of delicious chocolates is packed full of goodness.  The common thick shell this time hides a delightful differently flavoured centre.  They joy of a box like this is that if you don’t happen to like one, there’s tons more to choose from.

I remember opening the box and seeing the card for the flavours and thinking ‘shame they won’t all be in there’ then my delight when they were.  From coffee cream to a delightful hazelnut and hard toffee chocolate, everything on the card was in the box.

This has got to be one of the safest and best gifts.  The box is sturdy so you could even trust it to the post. The chocolates are all thick shelled so they won’t easily squish and the box design is just so much fun it’s hard to resist.

Once again the chocolate isn’t the top of the top and I think it needs to be that step below to ensure long shelf life but these chocolates do try very hard to be both delightfully good quality, and be on the shelves when you want them, where you want them.  The chocolate is still miles better than much mass market chocolate though at times is a bit too sweet for me.

While this box took longer to disappear than the mint box, it still beat the tin of Celebrations which, three months after purchase still languishes with its chocolates on the kitchen table.

This lovely box of minty chocolate goodness has 4 different types of mint chocolate in it.  There are traditional mint fondant patties, a mint fondant ball topped with a crystallised mint leaf on it, a white chocolate mint chocolate with mint milk chocolate mousse filling and a solid mint chocolate with crispies in it.

This box is stuffed with chocolate and so is a good solid weight.  This also protects the chocolate in it, as does the thickness of the chocolate shell of each chocolate.  The chocolate is a moderate quality and the strong mint flavour really covers up much of the chocolate flavour.

The mint patty has a lovely creamy mint filling.  Perfect and quintessential this was the first chocolate I tried.  The next was the one with the crystallised mint leaf on top.  This also had a creamy fondant centre with a thick chocolate shell.  I then tried the white chocolate with the chocolate coffee bean on top.  I ate the bean first which had a strong coffee flavour and then munched the mint white chocolate with mint milk chocolate centre.  That was lovely.  Finally I had the solid mint chocolate with crisp mint pieces.

I loved the box and had to share it I enjoyed it so much.  I think I should have just kept it to myself but when you find something yummy, you have to share it!

As you open the box, you can smell the champagne and the inside of the lovely purple box holds a bunch of these lovely balls of goodness just waiting to be shared.  There are plenty in each box and a thick chocolate shell on the chocolate ensures none will be broken when they are received.

Each chocolate is covered in powdered sugar on the outside.  Biting through the think chocolate shell you bite in to a lovely, almost liquid centre of the champagne ganache.

This truffle is very sweet – from the powdered sugar outside through the sugary chocolate, it is sweet all the way down.  Too sweet for me.  The chocolate as well is not the highest quality but it is firmly better than some other chocolate shops.  The trade off between high quality chocolate and shelf life has been measured and weighed and balanced as carefully as possible, meaning Prestat seem to have worked to create a transportable great quality chocolate.

A special treat, it is likely to be enjoyed by everyone and the beautiful box is extremely sturdy so it’ll survive being moved – if there are any left to be moved once the box is opened!

There’s something about champagne truffles that makes them wonderfully special no matter what.  These have earned a firmly wonderful place in the “great” chocolate section.

There is too little cinnamon used in cooking and even less in chocolate so it was with a particular amount of delight that I opened the box of Prestat organic chocolate cinnamon wafers.

Prestat has the most amazing packaging and when you consider the box arrived without any damage, it is a testament to their thoughtful design.  The burnt orange colour offset with the gold makes this a beautiful box.

Inside is a row of chocolate wafers all lovely and ready to be tasted which I did most eagerly.

One thing I’d like to point out here is the ingredients list of this organic milk chocolate and cinnamon wafer I have in my mouth as I write this (I couldn’t stop eating them): organic cane sugar, organic cocoa butter, organic full cream milk powder, organic cocoa mass, organic cinnamon, emulsifier, soya lecithin, natural vanilla.

It is so wonderful to get such a lovely organic chocolate.  The flavour of the milk powder does overwhelm the blended taste somewhat which disappointed me a bit.  The sweetness of the sugar overbalances the blend and leaves a sweet aftertaste.  I’m not sure if it was to counterbalance the cinnamon or chocolate but it was a bit too much.

I love cinnamon and for that reason I’ve been enjoying this chocolate but I have to admit that I have some reservations.  I’ve given this a “great” rating but not “top notch” as I feel the after taste and slightly strange flavour the chocolate is a bit of a drawback.