Chocolate farm tastes success (From Western Telegraph)

Chocolate farm tastes success

A SPECIAL Welsh chocolate truffle has won a top accolade at the 2001 Great Taste Awards.

Local chocolatiers, Pembertons, won a silver medal for their Coffi Cymru truffle made at the Welsh Chocolate Farm at Llanboidy.

Were really pleased to win with Coffi Cymru. It proves our Welsh coffee blend is a favourite, said Elizabeth Jones, who heads the new product development team at Pembertons.

The special coffee is a blend of beans from Brazil, Columbia, India, Africa and Indonesia. They are roasted on the farm to get the exact flavour. The coffee is then blended with chocolate, Welsh cream, whisky and a few secret ingredients to produce the winning truffle.

This is the first time the local company has entered the Great Taste Awards, which attract entries from all over Europe. They also won a silver medal for their rich dark chocolate bar with lime and chilli and a bronze award for their non alcoholic banana and toffee truffle.

To win three awards in such a prestigious national competition at our first attempt, shows that Welsh chocolates are up among the best in the world. Its an official recognition for something we knew already, said Elizabeth Jones.

All the award winning chocolates will be on show at Olympia in London, on September 9th - 11th, when Pembertons will be officially launching their new Xocolatl range of hand painted and decorated chocolate bars. Xocolatl is the old Aztec word for chocolate. The Aztecs valued chocolate more highly than gold. They bought cattle and even wives with cocoa beans.

Chocolate is a sensation to the tastebuds - were putting designs on chocolate to make it visually appealing as well. Almost too good to eat ... but not quite! says Elizabeth Jones.