In our home, we plan trips around chocolate. Our quick, 2 day stop over in Vancouver was planned specifically to visit the annual Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival. This has been on my bucket list for many years, as you can all imagine, and a crazy snowstorm that closed down the whole city when we arrived did nothing to damper our excitement or resolve to try as many of the hot chocolates on offer. Luckily, the cafes were all still open.
For a few weeks every year, cafes, restaurants and other businesses across the city offer a unique hot chocolate always accompanied by a small dessert. With so many drinks on offer, the wilder and more photogenic the hot chocolate, the more noise it generates. The city is all on board and not only have the number of businesses participating increased every year, it is obviously as we visit the different locations that many in Vancouver go hot chocolate crazy during that time.
One of the main reasons I wanted to visit Vancouver in the first place, in the middle of winter, was to visit Kasama. Kasama (Filipino for friendship) is a bean to bar chocolate maker on Granvile Island in Vancouver. Opened in 2015, they have a special relationship with the Philippines and not only source some of the beans used to make their chocolate from there, but infuse a lot of the flavors the country is known for as well. Their chocolates have won every international awards and for good reason. Make sure to add their 55% goat’s milk bar, their “tanned chocolate” muscovado bar, their strawberry white chocolate bar and their Forest and Sea bar to your shopping list, which should already include most of their single origin plain dark chocolate bars.
We ordered both hot chocolates that they had on offer today. The first, called Lola’s Biko, takes inspiration from the beloved Filipino rice cake. It is made with dark chocolate, made from beans sourced from the Philippines, coconut milk with a little vanilla and cinnamon added. The whole is topped with whipped cream and a sprinkle of crispy rice and then generously drizzled with muscovado caramel. A square of crispy Biko served with it. The other was a dark chocolate infused with spruce tips, aromatic junper berries and blueberries. This was then topped with whip cream, drizzled with vibrant blueberry sauce and crowned with a few candied berries, served alongside a blueberry honey macaron.
Kasama Chocolate: 2-1244 Cartwright St, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Open Wednesday to Friday 10am-5pm, Saturday and Sunday 11am-6pm. Kasamachocolate.com
