Tasting Notes – Niche Chocolate

One of the delights from my recent trip to Ghana was the discovery of a new chocolate brand, Niche Chocolate. I probably would have ignored it at the store were it not for the ginger on the wrapping calling my name. Why not, right? So I bought a single bar of the ginger flavour and finished it in the car while heading home wondering why I only got one. It was delicious. I had planned to return to the US with Golden Tree chocolates as gifts but at the end of my trip I found myself with variety packages of both.

Niche chocolate is made by a private cocoa processing company based in Tema, Ghana. It has been around since 2011 and processes organic cocoa for export. More importantly, it processes organic cocoa into cocoa liquor, cocoa cake, and cocoa butter locally for export. They started to produce chocolate in 2014, and I’m wondering when that will be ready for export. This is good chocolate that rivals those that I buy at specialty chocolate stores here.

I have tried the coconut, milk, and dark chocolate but the ginger is still the best. I hear that there is a mango one out there as well but didn’t see it in the stores. The ginger smells like ginger and has a very mild kick to it. As someone who enjoys eating crystallized ginger, I actually would prefer it to be spicier, to give that ginger heat, but even the mild flavour puts it several ranks above the milk chocolate. I can eat the entire bar I think because I keep expecting a strong ginger POW! Okay, I confess, I can eat the entire bar of any form of chocolate in one sitting.

In terms of the others, the dark is a mild dark. A good dark chocolate for milk chocolate lovers like myself. Smooth and not too bitter. The coconut smells like coconut, surprise! It is cocolicious but I am very biased towards the ginger. I’m still sitting here months later salivating over the thought of it.

In all I’m very proud of this locally grown, locally made Ghanaian chocolate. Of the chocolates I brought back Niche ginger, Niche dark, and Golden Tree TQ bar were the most enjoyed. As the number two producer of cocoa in the world, Ghana needs to step up the game in producing chocolate bars and other finished chocolate products. At the very least, the chocolate bars in the grocery stores and petrol stations in Ghana (and West Africa and all of Africa in fact) need to be locally made. Niche has done very well! I wish them many decades of success and many awards to come.