The Chocolate Line

The Chocolate Line in Bruges was on my "must go for shopping"! We picked 10 kinds of bonbons, including Apple (hazelnut praline, apple balsamic vinegar, and granny smith), Ginger bread (ginger, gingerbread, hazelnut, and cinnamon), Yuzu (raspberry, caramel and yuzu), Swan-shaped "Lac d'amour" (almond praline and caramelized coconut), Red Earth (beetroot and hazelnut praline), and  Poppy (poppy seeds, almond praline, "feuilletine" crisp). Feuilletine is a crispy confection made from thin, sweetened crêpes, by the way. The bonbons were pop and artistic and some of their flavors were interesting. Each piece tasted pretty good and had it own character.

In 1992, The Chocolate Line was founded in Bruges by Persoone and Fabienne Destaercke. Open-minded combination of unique flavors seem to be their speciality while they also offer classic flavors such as bonbons with caramel or pure dark chocolate ganache. There were so many choices. It was a hard task to pick only 10!

Apparently they are keen on discovering and playing with rare cocoa varieties. According to their booklet, they cultivate their own trees of "the Criollo, an exquisite cocoa beans" in Yucatan and they also produce Bean to Bar chocolate by working with special cocoa farmers. At the shop, we saw beans and machines that were used to process "the limited amounts of exclusive cocoa beans."

I thought that the Chocolate Line's playful creation and rough but energetic power were something I didn't find in the high-end chocolatiers in Brussels or the local chocolatiers in Bruges that we visited. Their chocolate was clearly one of my top five!