So first let me get it out in the open, I’m a food snob. I enjoy critiquing what I eat and finding the subtle nuances in flavors and textures. I turn my nose up at most restaurant chains because they excel primarily at mediocracy. I usually tweak a recipe because I think I can make it taste better and most food products I buy are either really tasty, or really nice looking but seldomly all the above. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy most food, but perfection in food for me is rare. However, when I find a food that’s got the complete package, I’m usually it’s biggest cheerleader. This is me cheering.
A few months ago I was introduced to Rick Levine, founder of Seth Ellis Chocolatier by Brad Feld and got to know him and his company a bit better through the course of a few e-mails and phone calls. Rick asked us great questions about Foodzie that really got us thinking more in depth about our business and really provided tremendous, thoughtful feedback. My only knowledge of his chocolate was the verbiage he had on the site and the really appetizing shots of his truffles (see above!), but something in my gut told me that Rick wasn’t the kind of guy that would make anything that was just average. Now that we’re located in Boulder, CO, we finally had the chance to stop by his magical chocolate factory to get a taste.
First let me say that our visit wasn’t planned. We had a photo shoot with the Rocky Mountain News to go along with an article they were doing about young entrepreneurs that Foodzie will be featured in along with two other TechStars companies from last year EventVue and Brightkite (shameless plug…check out the Rocky Mountain News in about two weeks to see our story!). At the last minute, we were asked to come up with a food-related place, preferably with an artisan producer we’ll be working with for the shot. Immediately I thought of Rick, so with just 10 minutes of notice I gave Rick a call and he graciously invited us into his chocolate world. I’m not sure if he expected us to take over the place for the shoot, but he was absolutely cool about it, didn’t complain a bit and best of all he fed us!
To understand how I critique chocolate, I’d say you could place most chocolate into one of three categories. Terrible (think waxy Hershey bar), Pretty Good (once you get past bad, most chocolate is pretty good, I mean it’s chocolate right?), Perfect (think rich, creamy, balanced - the stuff you tell your friends about). Seth Ellis Chocolatier’s line of organic truffles easily fell into the category of perfect.
He started us out with a ginger truffle, which is prepared using both crystalized and regular ginger. Then we moved onto a raspberry truffle, prepared with organic raspberry puree that was wonderfully balanced. But then Rick brought out the mint truffles, which absolutely blew me away. I’ve never reached for seconds with a mint chocolate because everything I have tasted pre-Seth Ellis tasted like an Andes after-dinner chocolate mint with that artificial, chemical mint flavor. If I had just closed my eyes and popped the Seth Ellis mint truffle in my mouth, I could have easily been fooled into thinking that I had just tasted a dark chocolate covered mint leaf that just got plucked out of the garden. The flavor was light, fresh, almost dancing on your tongue - my mouth was happy. I’ve tasted a lot of chocolate and I can say without a doubt that I’ve never tasted a mint truffle that was as flawless as that. For the encore, we enjoyed an enrobed candied lemon and a coffee truffle that mirrored the others in exceptional taste and quality. I think Rick said it best when said “Some make their chocolate really pretty, some make it really tasty and some just make the box look good. We knew we had to do all three to be successful.” Without a doubt Rick and his team are doing just that - they figured out how to make the complete package.
