www.chocovader.com/
I love how candy aisles in Japanese convenience stores have become shrines to the branded characters of pop culture, shrines where no one pays their respects to the chocolate, which has become a wrap-around commodity to get collectibles placed at kid's eye level. The altars have been built to worship Hello Kitty figurines filled with chocolate covered peanuts, Peanuts characters tucked into a chocolate egg, or Harry Potter chocolate frogs that, just like in the books, come with a trading card. Go and pray that you will be lucky enough to chance upon a full stock of the deity du jour -- Chocovaders. That's a katakana-ized version of chocolate space invaders. The chocolate, rather regrettable if you eat it, forms a ball around a plastic bubble, which itself contains a UFO or alien toy soldier. The first time toy-maker Tomy pulled this stunt, businessmen were buying and selling small, plastic dinosaurs for tens of thousands of yen each.
www.scharffenberger.com/
If microbreweries can successfully take on the big boys, there's no reason Scharffen Berger can't do the same with chocolate. Especially since the three guys behind the low-tech startup appear to be passionate hand-craftsmen. Their Berkeley microchocolatier is the only U.S. chocolate factory to open in the past 50 years (1996). The founders restored 100-year-old European equipment for small-batch roasting, milling and conching -- the bean-to-bar process. They use seven types of beans from five equatorial countries, as well as whole Tahitian and Bourbon vanilla beans. Their mainstay product -- a 70 percent bitter-sweet bar -- is both a baking and eating chocolate. They don't even bother with a milk chocolate bar. But it's Scharffen Berger's product line that sets them apart. Besides the bars, they sell 3 kg blocks of the stuff, cacao nibs -- roasted cocoa beans separated from the husks and broken into bits -- and a sauce that, among its many uses, makes a great hot fudge. It's the purest sauce on the market, made only with the company's own 99 percent chocolate, whole milk, cream, and a tad of sugar. The site has a list of Tokyo stores that carry the goods.
www.peterschocolate.com/
Even the mass producers recognize how select ingredients and small batches improve a chocolate's quality. You probably have never heard of Daniel Peter, but if you've ever wondered who originated milk chocolate, he's the answer. The "invention" came about 125 years ago, right around the time Peter's Chocolate merged with another small Swiss maker called Nestle. While Nestle-branded chocolate made the compromises necessary to land on supermarket shelves around the world, Peter's Chocolate, now made in California, quietly sold to gourmet candy makers; before the day of the middle class connoisseur, they were the only ones willing to pay for the purer bars. The site includes links to some of those makers, plus a brief history on milk chocolate.