For The Girls: Flying Bird Botanicals' Cacao

Apr 07, 2011

For The Girls: Flying Bird Botanicals' Cacao

With the colder weather ahead, I'm stocking up on soup ingredients, warm clothing, and most importantly, hot chocolate (and ok, ok, I know hot chocolate isn't JUST for the ladies, but I know a hell of a lot more women who drink it than men!).

I've spoken before of my love of Etsy, and so in my quest to find the perfect hot chocolate to chase away the chill I thought I'd try this site to see if I could order some in.

In my cyber-travels I found Flying Bird Botanicals, a company that specialises in tea, cacao (hot chocolate), body products and products for babies and nursing/expectant mothers. All products are 100% organic and fair trade, and they carry products I've never seen before, so I ordered a couple of tins of cacao to try out.

Cacao Vanilla Rose and Cacao Chokola - $12.75 US each

According to the website, all of their cacao is made with "only the finest heirloom peruvian and ecuadorian cacao and lightly sweetened with only raw sugar infused with whole vanilla beans".

The Vanilla Rose variety features raw sugar infused with rose petals and vanilla beans, and this is the one that I tried first. I slowly heated 2 cups of milk to 2 tablespoon of powder, as per the directions on the tin. After a couple of minutes of stirring it was ready, so I poured it into a mug and gave it a go. The richness and the bitterness of the cacao comes through strongly, but is then tempered by the mild sweetness of the raw sugar. The vanilla is tasted next, and then the whole bouquet is finished with the fragrant rose petal, which rounds the mouth full out and is reminiscent of the rosewater element in turkish delight. When tasting, it becomes apparent that the ingredients can only be of high quality.

The Chokola variety is a far more traditional blend of spices and cacao, and is not for the faint of heart. I combined this one with cream instead of milk, and the result was a thicker, richer concoction. The cacao in this mixture tastes and smells a little more medicinal, but it definitely goes with the spicyness of the cinammon, all spice, and cardamom. It's an invigorating cup, and would be my first choice when I come home in the middle of July, cold and wet.

This company is based in Washington, USA, but they do ship to Australia. I, for one, am going to order again to try some more of their products.

Flying Bird Botanicals

www.flyingbirdbotanicals.com

http://www.etsy.com/shop/flyingbirdbotanicals