When I think of Zotter Chocolate I think of Willy Wonka – an eccentric chocolatier and creative genius who brings his child-like sense of fun to the chocolate creations he makes. Unlike Willy Wonka, Zotter makes chocolate from some of the finest single-origin cacao in the world, bringing serious chocolate together with serious fun.
I remember the first time I stumbled on Zotter Chocolate. It was 2007 and I was visiting chocolate shops in San Francisco in advance of opening my retail store in Seattle. I came across Zotter’s hand scooped bars in an international magazine shop with a large specialty chocolate collection (the former Fog City News). While the colorful and fun packaging caught my eye, it was the innovative flavor combinations that stuck with me — Brains & Eggs, Juneberry on Buttered Bread, Cheese & Mango Chutney to name a few in their current lineup.
Josef Zotter and his wife, Ulrike, began producing hand-scooped chocolates in 1992 in the back of a confectionery shop they’d opened 5 years earlier. Their Hand Scooped line is named because they hand scoop and layer fillings, one on top of the other, without using molds.
"The hand-scooped bar is our biggest innovation in our company history. My parents had promised 300 bars to a customer, but we only had 3 molds. The first step towards Hand-Scooped Chocolate was actually to buy curtain rods, build a giant mold, pour chocolate in there with pumpkin seeds, and then cut it into smaller pieces." -— Julia Zotter
In 1999 they turned their full attention to chocolate, closing their confectionery stores and opening the Zotter Chocolate Manufactory in the stable of Josef’s family farm in Bergl, Austria. Today “Zotter Experience World” is an immersive experience that boasts a Chocolate Theater, a factory tour, an Edible Zoo, and a factory shop where their full assortment of 500 chocolates is available.
Born into Chocolate
The entire Zotter family, including father Josef, mother Ulrike, daughter Julia and her siblings Michael and Valerie work together at the Zotter chocolate factory. Our speaker, Julia, took over the role of CEO in March. Born in 1987 when her parents opened their first pastry shop, Julia grew up among cakes and developed a sweet tooth early on. She helped out as a kid, mostly taste-testing the iconic Hand Scooped chocolates.
"My brother and me, we grew up first in the pastry shop, and then in the chocolate factory. We were always part of the business... we were packaging, tasting chocolate. In the very beginning, we were even placing a pumpkin seed as a decoration on every single chocolate bar when it came out of the coating machine. Back then, we were not fair trade certified yet, so child labor was okay. We were paid in chocolate bars, and my brother and me, we got up to a lot of mischief in the chocolate factory."
Julia studied food science, received a Grand Diplôme in Cuisine & Pastry from the Cordon Bleu in Paris, became a master pastry chef in Austria and lived in Shanghai, where she opened a branch of Zotter Chocolates. She speaks 6 languages and has lived with cacao farmers in Brazil. Julia recently returned from an origin trip to Colombia to visit the women responsible for the cacao in the Colombia 80% bar our members tasted. When she travels, she brings Zotter Chocolate to share with the farmers who grew the cacao.
"The greatest thing for me is to bring chocolate back to origin and see how farmers react. In most origins, people are used to very sweet chocolates, and very often not made from their own cacao. We like to share really dark chocolates, but people there are not used to that. So, when you first share a chocolate bar with a local farmer, it's actually really funny, because they're really proud of it, but on the other hand, the very first bite is super difficult for them, because it is very, very bitter."
What Members Tasted
Soft, chewy, crunchy, tart, caramelized. The flavors and textures of Zotter's original product, the Hand Scooped chocolates of curtain-rod fame, provided an interesting sensory contrast to the intensely chocolaty single-origin chocolates of Zotter's Labooko line.
If you're wondering about the name "Labooko", Julia shared that it's a made-up name. "Labooko is a fantasy name. It's about being a book. You can open them like a book, and you can read more about the content of the chocolate, the flavor profiles, and everything inside."
Zotter produces about 1,000 tons of 100% organic, fair trade, bean-to-bar chocolate annually. They are a member of the World Fair Trade Organization, but have chosen to use their own "Fair" logo on their products because Zotter goes beyond the fair trade requirements. They pay many times the world market rate for cacao, guarantee the highest quality raw materials and buy directly from all of their suppliers to ensure full product traceability. All of the ingredients used to make chocolate come from organic cultivation.
Julia points out that the direct trade relationships are important to cacao quality, saying "There is nothing we can do to make good chocolate out of bad cocoa."
On the inside wrapper of each single-origin bar “Conching time” is listed. Conching is the process of kneading, lightly heating and aerating liquid chocolate during the final stages of refining. It reduces the acidity built up during fermentation and mellows and changes the chocolate’s flavor. Conche time depends on the maker’s approach to flavor and the specific cacao origin. Conching can take place over a few hours or a few days.
Colombia 80%
Julia recently visited the Arhuaco women’s cooperative responsible for this cacao. The Arhuaco are an indigenous people who live in the Santa Marta de Sierra Nevada mountain range in the north of Colombia near the Caribbean coast. An intense chocolate, it announces itself with strong chocolate flavor accompanied by notes of bitter orange, roasted almonds and hints of cinnamon. I get a decidedly chocolaty aftertaste with pleasant bitterness that’s appropriate for an 80% chocolate made with fine flavor cacao. Conching time: 12 hours.
São Tomé 75%
When I entered the craft chocolate business there was one chocolate maker on the island of São Tomé, Claudio Corallo. His chocolate sometimes tasted like diesel and ham (depending on the harvest), which colored my opinion of this origin. More recently I’ve re-evaluated my opinion after tasting São Tomé-origin chocolate with pleasant flavor notes so I was open to featuring this bar that Julia recommended. Zotter’s São Tomé is a creamy and delicate contrast to the intensity and acidity of Colombia. It opens with cream notes followed by cashews, hints of tropical fruits, and a decidedly chocolate and nutty finish. Conching time: 19 hours.
Contest: Belize 72%/ Panama 72%
Contest bars pair two origins together in a single wrapper – it’s like getting two for the price of one. On the left side, Belize 72%, conching time: 21 hours. On the right side, Panama 72%, conching time: 22 hours. I find the Belize to be a rich and satisfying chocolate with notes of mandarin oranges, crème fraiche, chocolate brownie and nuts. A less common origin, Panama offers notes of honey and chocolate with hints of green tea.
Hand Scooped Raspberry Cherry with Pumpkin Crunch
Julia noted that the Hand Scooped line demonstrates flavor and texture combinations that tasters won't experience in a plain or inclusion bar. She recommended our members taste this bar because it's a classic Styrian ingredient with a fun twist (Styria is the Austrian state where Zotter is located). It’s nutty and fruity and packs a crunch. When you break off a piece you'll see a deep burgundy raspberry marzipan layer on top of green pumpkin seed praline separated by a thin layer of crispy waffle brittle. The intensity of the raspberry marzipan and pumpkin seed praline shine through with minimal sugar. Makes me feel like I’m in Styria!
Hazelnut Brittle
I love Zotter’s take on the European classic combination of hazelnut praline and dark chocolate. The rich, dark, bean-to-bar chocolate is intensely chocolaty in a way that perfectly complements the sweet flavor of ground hazelnuts, maintaining just the right balance of chocolate, sweet, smooth and crunch. While it offers some of the sweet notes you expect from hazelnut praline, it maintains a sophisticated dark chocolate flavor that keeps it from wandering into the cloyingly sweet territory of many a hazelnut praliné.
The Hand Scooped Brains & Eggs bar didn't make it into this month's box, but it's worth talking about. Brains & Eggs is Zotter's worst-selling chocolate bar — and, in blind tastings, 90% of customers name it as a favorite. Tell them it contains caramelized pork brain and half won't take a second piece, even though the chocolate in their hand hasn't changed. Julia calls it their "protest chocolate." "Just because you never asked for it, doesn't mean that this might not become your favorite chocolate bar. It's just something that has to be tried first."
