It’s nearly 10 years since I discovered Snape Maltings in Suffolk. Back then it was the site of a poetry festival. Sometimes you go to places that just feel so right straight away, for reasons you can’t really ascertain. I loved the containment of it – accommodation, a concert venue, shops, pubs, at the time a bakery (Pump Street, now sadly no longer there) all on site. The poetry was great, too, and it was there I first met the poet Hollie McNish.
The food shop at Snape is also a delight – full of independent labels and old-fashioned sweets. And there’s a great array of chocolate, although increasingly few I haven’t already tried (life is hard when you’re a chocolate correspondent).
This trip I did pick up a bar of Suffolk-based Tosier’s 65% Ghanian Dark Mylk, £6.50/60g, (I wrote about this three years ago, but the cocoa was a different harvest.) All of Tosier’s chocolate is vegan and dairy-free (I’m told the two aren’t always the same thing), so the slight creaminess in this bar – and there isn’t a lot – is from toasted (gluten-free) buckwheat. But it’s an excellent chocolate. I think if you went for the ‘mylk’ part you might be disappointed, but if you went for delicious chocolate, you’d be very satisfied.
The cocoa is strong, confident, strident, multilayered. The taste lingers, for a long time.
If you do go on to Tosier’s site, remember their 70% Tumaco Colombia with Colombian Coffee, £7/60g, is some of the best I’ve ever tasted. And also try to catch Freddy Rocks, £15/9, when they’re in stock.
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