In honour of Hotel Chocolat being one of the runners-up in the St Albans retailer of the year award, I thought I’d post a picture of the ‘Excellence 2008’ box from their Chocolate Tasting Club.

Click through the picture for descriptions.

For those of you who’ve not heard of the club, they send you, er, a box of chocolates to, er, taste. Hence the name.

I’ve stopped getting the boxes every month and now have them on a quarterly basis, but we do get the annual ‘best of’ box. And this one was a stonker. Not a single chocolate rated less than 9/10 (and there’s normally one or two that I’d score at around 6/10), an average of 9.4 and no fewer than five chocolates I rated at 10/10. Step forwards:

Red, White & Blue Best supporting fruit – white chocolate ganache mixed with redcurrants and blueberries, enrobed in a white chocolate shell.

Caramel Melt Most mellow – A firm praline brimming with earthy hazelnut, blended with an all natural essence of traditionally British caramel toffee enrobed in a silky smooth milk chocolate topped with a 100% cocoa swirl.

Dutch coffee Members’ choice – looks like a little chocolate coffee cup. Filled with ganache mixed with coffee and advocaat, topped with white chocolate lid and sprinkles of coffee.

Eton mess Best members’ creation – wish I’d thought of this one for the competition. Meringue with strawberry buttercream enrobed in white chocolate, topped with freeze dried strawberry pieces. Surely as close as you can get to real Eton mess in a chocolate?

Amaretti Creme Best dressed – amaretto creme in a dark chocolate topped with an amaretti biscuit. Shame one of mine was crushed in the post (very top right) but it tasted just as good!

Made you feel hungry yet?