Chocolate. It finds YOU.

Some time ago, I was sent a giant box in the mail.

Oh, nice. What was inside?

Assorted Chocolates, Fleur de Sel Caramels and Ginger, Earl Grey, Mint and Kahlua Truffles

Oh Charles. Based in San Francisco, with a commitment to using organic, natural and quality ingredients (for instance, their chocolates are either 41%, milk, or 61% bittersweet. Those are some nice cacao percentages), Charles Chocolates has an intense selection of tasties. Do you like that most official language? I have no idea if they know what kind of site is advertising their classy goods. But not just chocolates -- pate de fruit and Meyer Lemon or Blood Orange marmalades are among their offerings. I haven't tasted them. But I bet they're legit.

I've never had this happen before, you know, so I don't know what I'm doing beyond the obvious -- I ate these chocolates, and they were delicious. They were also free, and free from strings, and I shared them with a lot of people and we all really liked them. So I'm telling you about them, like everything else I like, only I didn't have to pay shipping and handling.

Charles Chocolates also included one of their Edible Boxes, a bittersweet and white chocolate fully-edible vessel, filled with heart-shaped truffles, each infused with either Passionfruit, Raspberry or Mojito flavors and dusted with silver or gold luster. The passion fruit was my favorite -- it's sweet tang contrasts so well with the dark chocolate, and each piece is so quality that it literally dissolves on the tongue, small enough to feel like a private indulgence. You know? Like I don't like describing food in the way of a Lifetime Movie commercial, but it was. Truly "A Private Indulgence: Starring Delta Burke and Meshach Taylor, reunited for the first time since 'Designing Women'".

But what really got to me, in that particular way, was the box of Fleur De Sel caramels included in the three-box assortment. Thin wafers of chocolate enrobed, chewy caramel that honestly taste just of butter, sugar and salt -- they aren't gloppy, and the caramel didn't spill out after the first nibble like so many others, instead it strings and tugs against your teeth and then melts instantly. These chocolates and confections aren't grainy sweet, they aren't overwhelming and in some cases (the mojito truffle) the flavors chosen for each piece almost surprise you, make you think and identify each note. Like an SAT Prep course, these chocolates. Or that Jazz CD someone keeps playing every time you're in the car. That damn Jazz CD.

They were really good. Everyone who came over ate some, and the lies I fed my loved ones and friends were intense -- this site is a secret, in that "I don't really talk about it" way, and explaining why there was a large amount of fancy chocolate delivered to me was hard. "I won. A contest." And the chocolate box, which sounds like a Janet Jackson track or something Ja Rule might rap on, was the best because people went feral -- first they didn't believe it was made of chocolate, then they'd pick it up and gnaw a corner off. So many mouths, so many happy mouths cracking into a lid, a slab of decorated white chocolate, or the box itself, which was dark chocolate. So thank you, Charles. Whoever you are, you chocolate heathen, for bringing such fantastic sin into my life. I keep pencils in your boxes, now.

Comments

[Chelsea]

Gorgeous packaging.

[sil]

I like rolling by their place (actually in Emeryville for any bayareans reading). All their stuff is amazing and really really pretty. I love that meyer lemon one. Really love.

[Kitty]

free stuff is that much better when its actually good.

I love the blue and brown of the box. It looks like my dining room.

[shayna]

if you go visit the factory (not too far from my work), say on a lunchbreak or somethin'...you can get a plate of chocolate and sit at the window bar looking in on a massive rolling cart of chocolate caramel apples sold exclusively at williams sonoma. excuse me, have to go mop up the drool...

[Linsey]

Tell me more about the mojito one. I do love me some minty lime.

[Kitt]

You are an evil temptress.