As we’ve learned before, and as we know intuitively, coffee and chocolate go together like, and possibly better than, bread and butter. It’s why espresso truffles fly out of the case at chocolateries and Northwest baristas sling mochas in the morning by the minute. But can coffee and chocolate grow to go better together?
Ongoing partnerships between a few chocolate makers and coffee roasters suggest that the closer the collaboration, the better the products. It’s why, in spite of the incredible array of fine producers of both commodities around the region, we see coffee-chocolate power couples. Check out a few of my favorites, and the results of their ongoing collaborations.
• Portland Roasting Coffee & Moonstruck Chocolate Co. – Young love. This Thursday, April 24, 21-year-old Moonstruck and 18-year-old Portland Roasting celebrate a newly budding relationship with Free Coffee Day, marking the official choice of the latter as the former’s roaster of choice. Free 12-ounce cups of French-roasted joe plus four-ounce samples of Portland Roasting Tumbled Coffee Chocolates are very reasonably expected to draw crowds to all four Moonstruck Chocolate Café locations—two of which (Beaverton, and Portland’s NW 23rd) will put on coffee-chocolate pairing events with Moonstruck’s Master Chocolatier Julian Rose during the day of festivity.
· Caffe Vita & Theo Chocolate – Old married couple. Seattle mainstays Theo Chocolate, the nation’s first all-organic, all-fair trade chocolate maker, and ever-popular Caffe Vita are ubiquitous on the Emerald City’s foodscape, but somehow they always seem to come back to each other for another collaboration, whether it’s the perfect coffee for drinking with chocolate (Caffe Vita’s medium-roasted Theo Blend) or Theo’s new ECI Coffee & Cream bar, featuring Eastern Congolese coffee and cacao by way of Vita and Theo respectively in support of the Eastern Congo Initiative for peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
· Spella Caffe & Alma Chocolate – Up-and-coming caffeine countesses. Two miles from each other, across the Willamette, Portland lady proprietors Andrea Spella of PDX darling Spella Caffè and Sarah Hart of Alma Handmade Chocolates keep a low profile but continuously promote the local, including each others’ businesses. Hart, spurred into the world of gourmet chocolate in 2004 by horrible-tasting chocolate Easter bunnies, was taught by original Moonstruck chocolatier Ian Titterton, and welcomes Spella Caffè plus other local culinarians and artists into her café and confections (check out The Portlandia Collection).
