Karmello Chocolatier

With the return home of my parents, they came bearing gifts. This year they stepped up their game and came back from Poland with excellent sweet treats! It all looked luxurious: from this slick box of chocolates to Karmello macarons (coffee, chilli, Madagascan & Ecuadorian), even the poppy-seed cake looked an upgrade from previous years. I think this just showed the growth in Poland's sweet culture: their highlighting of luxury through appearance, paying finer attention to quality etc. etc. They also have TWO small batch bean-to-bar chocolate companies which amazed me, though I'm yet to try them. It would be lovely if Poland could be thought of as having [and be compared to] French calibre. Well, for me, these chocolates were already half way there... all I needed to do was taste!

Karmello's philosophy expresses itself in their motto: "taste is personal, quality is not". Due to translation it sounds jarring but you get the idea. There was no menu with the chocolates but on their website I could see they had a chocolate to suit every mood and please every tongue

This Karmello chocolate selection was bought in Krakow, definitely with me in mind, and shared between the three of us, though mainly me

Reflecting back on the chocolates, the Gingerbread was most memorable. Firstly, it looked great with the white dome decorated with cow spots, but what's more was the taste, it's one I'm so fond of: Polish pierniczki. The honey and spice was just like that of the soft, chewy ginger biscuits - an essence of my childhood memories - and was delicately enhanced by the white chocolate; a beautiful combination. By names, the Chilli Vodka, the Vodka seeming apt as originating in Poland, stood out the most, as sounding bold and sharp, but I kindly left it for my parents. I preferred the French Coffee (flavoured with Cognac) to the Italian Coffee (having an intense taste of Amaretto/marzipan). There were two other coffee flavoured chocolates; the Cappuccino, sweet, creamy and, like the French Coffee, was topped with cocoa nibs; and a Coffee and Nuts. These were nice coffee chocolates, but the French and Cappuccino were superior with their excellent textures

The Milk Chocolate had a royal appearance because of the gold shine it had, but its taste had tainted which is extremely common with non-flavoured chocolates, however the White Chocolate version hadn't, and was rich 'n' creamy with a hint of vanilla; both had a mousse texture. The Cookie, which was my first pick, combined gingerbread and nougat which again emphasised a honey spice flavour. The 2 Giandujas I tried didn't impress me and were my least favourite but I enjoyed the creamy nutty fillings of the White Californian Almond, Milky Turkish Hazelnut and Coffee and Nuts (all swirled domes)

Each chocolate looked exquisite, certainly French-esque, and the only real let down was the lack of a caramel flavour! What I loved was that they were made by hand and that each chocolate was soft centred, making each bite rich and indulgent