The only chocolate maker in Nottingham, Luisa from Luisa’s Vegan Chocolates, produces award-winning chocolate at her outlet in Sneinton Market, using a traditional artisan process to transform directly-sourced cocoa beans from bean to bar.
Her most recent achievements include an array of prestigious ‘Academy of Chocolate Awards’, including a Gold Award for her 92% Philippines chocolate, and two Bronze Awards for her Makira and Madagascan bars. This follows on from last year, where Luisa won both a Bronze Academy of Chocolate Award and a Great Taste award, confirming the consistent fine quality of her chocolate, fundamentally different in taste and ethos to mass-produced confectionery in every step of the process.
Not only is Luisa’s chocolate exceptional in taste, but each and every bar and truffle is vegan, gluten-free, and made without refined sugar with no compromise on taste, making her products a healthy, ethical alternative to mass-produced confectionery items. Luisa says: “Not only do we make dark chocolate, but have also recently launched 'casholate', a delicious alternative to milk chocolate, using cashew nuts to give a creamy taste, as well as a range of truffles.”
The taste of Luisa’s chocolate begins with the selection of beans; the cacao used in each bar is of single origin, in order to preserve the unique tasting notes that arise from each region as cacao beans pick up the flavours of the terrain on which they are cultivated, hence each origin produces bars with distinct flavours, “much like a fine wine, from citrus and fruity notes to smoky notes, depending on the region”, making chocolate-tasting events delightful. This focus on single-origin chocolate in addition to Luisa’s emphasis on using an artisan bean to bar process sets Luisa’s products apart, as she evokes bean to bar chocolate that is bursting with rich flavours, celebrating the tasting notes that characterise each region.
Luisa’s ethos is rooted in sustainability: the bean-to-bar production is currently waste-free, with the cocoa bean shells, usually discarded, used to make a delicious chocolate tea, and she is currently working towards making all packaging biodegradable. Her depth of knowledge of the cultivation of cacao and the fermentation process was enriched by her recent trip to Colombia, where Luisa was able to make direct contact with the farmers that will supply her beans, ensuring a strong relationship with the farms and emphasising the importance of ethical trade. It’s impossible to overstate the monumentally positive impact that being paid a better-than-fair price for their beans can make to each and every farming community involved in the supply process.
Luisa’s newly assigned awards prove her fine quality chocolate is being recognised by global organisations, making it the perfect time to visit her website, or her shop at Sneinton Market.
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