A little piece of heaven {DV Artisan Chocolate}

I've inherited something pretty awesome from my dad: A love for good quality, dark chocolate.  Note that I'm not talking about the sickly sweet, caramel-filled, wafer/cookie/jelly-stuffed sugar bombs called chocolate that you find at the quick shop on the corner.  Nope.  I'm talking about the real deal: 70% (minimum) cocoa, preferably organic, that snaps when you break it, shines when you look at it, and sets your taste buds alight.  Yum.  

And this holiday I discovered a little piece of dark chocolate heaven: DV Artisan Chocolate at the Spice Route near Paarl.  I'm in love.      

Happy mama!

On the surface DV's set-up is rather humble: A small, non-impressive building with a showroom, a kitchen, and two tasting rooms.  Nothing fancy.  

Where the magic happens.

But one bite of one of their dark chocolates and suddenly the humble setting fades into the background and the product takes centre stage: DV without a doubt produces some of the best dark chocolate I've ever tasted.  

DV offers a guided "single origin dark chocolate tasting", which includes six 70% dark chocolate options and some info on how it's made.  I really wanted to do this tasting, since dark chocolate's where my passion's at and I wanted to learn more, but the waiting period ended up getting too long for the kiddos, who obviously prefer running around and climbing onto things to listening to a stranger talking about the history of chocolate.  So, instead, we decided to do the self-guided chocolate and confectionery tasting,  which included some milk chocolate and nougat as well - right up Will and Miss K's alley.  

Will giving the chilli and cinnamon flavour a go.

Although the dark chocolate options were limited as part of the self-guided tour, it did contain this gem...  

Miss K going in for the kill.

Holy yum.  Nib & Salt - made with Ugandan cocoa beans, with salt and roasted cocoa nibs for extra crunch.  It's not sweet at all - just mild and crunchy and simply out of this world.  Yip, I stocked up.

So if you're a fellow dark chocolate fan and you're ever in the vicinity of Paarl, do yourself a favour: Go and discover DV.  It's heavenly!