Willie’s chocolate blogger: Claire

Claire Easby lives in Devon and lives with her three children Christie, Megan and Cameron.  She was one of the chocolate fans taking part in Willie Harcourt-Cooze’s trials to learn about real chocolate. Find out if she was convinced…

I have always been rather partial to a bit of chocolate, to say the least.  I have a ritual, 2 squares of a well-known brand of milk chocolate (on a good day, 2 rows, if bad… OK, 2 bars if dreadful!) after lunch. I have it whether I need it or not, and I only ever have my preferred brand. I do find if I run out of chocolate I crave it, so a stash is of the utmost importance. 

I did run out one night after the children had gone to bed. Knowing I couldn’t possibly sneak out to the garage three miles away my desperation led me to texting my ex-husband who would be driving past the end of the lane to work in the morning, having passed a garage. Concerned for his children he duly obliged, knowing the golden rule – never leave a mother in charge without chocolate!

Obviously I felt it was my duty to undertake the chocolate tasting but was resolute in my feeling about my brand being best. I could quite understand Willie’s point that we were being cheated of real chocolate and what we were eating was just watered down and that it was outrageous etc… but to me it was just fine, thank you very much and I was quite determined that I wasn’t going to change.

Meeting Dr Who
On our first meeting, Willie showed us round the factory.  A tiny place with amazingly old-fashioned machinery like a set from Dr Who.  We were offered a taste of the refined beans oozing wonderfully from the machine like a chocolate fountain.  Oh yes, I was going to enjoy this!

It was warm and smelt delicious and we each took a teaspoon and dived in… but oh my, how disgusting! Such a disappointment, so bitter and strong and really, well, yuk.

Willie said good chocolate lasted for one year. Yeah right. How would you ever find out?! More like one minute in our house.  I did find for a while though that if you keep it under the lettuce or potatoes in the vegetable drawer of the fridge, it could take up to a month for the children to find it!

We moved on to discuss our favourite types of chocolate and taste them.  I think the damage had been done by then, everything started to taste the same. We were given about 6 different types of dark chocolate to take home and try.  Whenever we reached for our normal chocolate we had to replace it with some dark and note the flavour, texture, smell etc.  Mmmm… my kind of homework.

At first it was quite hard. There was one that I just couldn’t eat; it just wasn’t something you want to put in your mouth. However, I made myself eat it in the name of science and interestingly, although I wasn’t enjoying dark chocolate, I wasn’t craving my usual milk chocolate. I still blamed my refined bean experience at the factory for that. I should probably have stopped there, my craving for chocolate teetering on the brink, but I had a duty to perform and I wasn’t going to let anybody down. I took another piece. 

As time went on I started to crave that distinct snap when you break it and the feeling in your mouth as it melted. Slowly I started to succumb to the charms of the dark side. I tried my beloved normal brand and to my disappointment it tasted bland, as if I was eating fat and sugar. Where was the chocolate?!  I was having to hide my stash again, too, as the children were becoming converts as well, especially Megan, giving her opinions on flavour and texture like a true pro.  Christie was still borderline and a bit more ‘whatever’, as long as it’s chocolate. Cameron is still very much Cameron.

Another thing I had noticed was that instead of feeling sleepy after my ‘after lunch chocolate sessions’ I was suddenly feeling incredibly wide awake and raring to go. Perhaps employers should consider the benefits of supplying real chocolate to their workforce!

On our next visit to the factory we were given three types of chocolate to try. Two of these were the same as the ones we had been given to take home. One of them was the one I had disliked and though I still didn’t like it, it was now for different reasons. One being it wasn’t strong enough! Can you believe that? It had no oomph! Ha ha, listen to me – the chocolate expert! I must have sounded a right one. Anyway, no word of a lie, number two (rather unfortunate) stood out a mile. The texture, the smell and wow, the flavour. Having bought cheap 85% at the supermarket for the previous month this was a truly unexpected pleasure… and it just happened to be Willie’s. He was chuffed to bits.

Our last meeting was to discuss packaging. A lovely chap called Alex came to discuss different types of wrapper, colours, sizes, writing etc. I found it quite interesting that the girls seemed to be drawn to a ‘handbag sized’ bar. Now, to me, size is incredibly important when it comes to chocolate. If I have a large bar, I can take 2 squares and put the rest in the fridge. However, when it gets down to the last 2 rows, I have to make sure there’s another bar in the fridge to replace it or I panic and end up eating the lot! I would have absolutely no control with a small bar, but maybe that’s what they’re working on, good marketing ploy!

And so our chocolate experience came to an end. There was a real ‘end of term’ feeling and it was quite sad to say goodbye. I look forward to seeing Willie’s chocolate on the supermarket shelves!

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