I just happened to see a post in Boing Boing tonight about Noka Chocolates being the most expensive in the world and ended up reading a 10 part series in DallasFood.org that says they're not worth it.
Hmm... I wonder if my Nooka watch and Noka Chocolate are related somehow....nah!
Just jump to part 10 of the series:
"...In conclusion, we return to the original question. Are Noka's chocolates worth the prices they charge?
They are not.
Noka's prices cannot be justified by the underlying ingredients. Bonnat is good chocolate that can warrant a premium, but not a markup of more than 1,300% of retail (as discussed in Part 9).
1,300% of retail. Think about that for a second. If you bought a gallon of milk with that markup, it would cost you more than forty bucks. If you bought a Honda Civic with that markup, it would cost you more than $200,000 (or over $300,000 if you opted for the Hybrid).
Lunacy."
I'd have liked to try a couple of pieces of Noka Chocolate, just the same. Part 10 of the Dallasfood.org article on Noka Chocolate gives you some less expensive alternatives.....
".....As a bit of an epilogue, I'll offer a few alternatives to Noka, for those who may be interested in tasting top quality single-origin chocolates (as good as or better than what Noka uses) at much lower prices.
Amedei. A small Italian company run by chocolate-geek agronomists, Amedei controls the processing from the point of harvest, including the drying and fermentation of the beans. For $37.95 at Chocosphere, you can buy an elegantly packaged 36-piece sampler of Amedei single-origin chocolates from Grenada, Madagascar, Jamaica, Trinidad, Ecuador, and Venezuela. At close to $100 a pound, Amedei makes the most expensive chocolate I sampled for these reports (excluding Noka, of course, since they don't actually make chocolate). Amedei's Chuao and Porcelana bars are also highly recommended.
Domori. The company's motto is "Cacao Cult" and, after skimming their web site, you'll see how appropriate that is. These guys are hardcore, controlling cultivation and processing every step of the way, and even working with a gene bank in Trinidad to revive lost Criollo cacao strains. For gift/presentation purposes, the Hacienda San Jose box is the way to go. At $97.50 from Chocosphere, you get a little over a pound of premium Criollo chocolates (from various sub-clones) ranging from 60% to 100% cacao solids, along with a booklet and DVD on the history and cultivation of Domori's Criollo cacao. (Are you listening, Santa?)
Pralus. For $47.95 from Chocosphere, the fine French chocolatier Pralus offers its "Pyramide"--a stack of ten individually wrapped 50 gram single-origin bars from Jamaica, Indonesia, São Tomé, Trinidad, Venezuela, Vanuatu, Ghana, Madagascar, Columbia, and Ecuador. For stocking stuffers, you can get the "Mini-Pyramide," which is the same thing, but with 5 gram squares, for a mere $8.95.
Michel Cluizel. For $19.50 from Chocosphere, you can get French maker Michel Cluizel's Les 1ers Crus de Plantation box, with individually wrapped squares of five plantation-specific chocolates. Also interesting as a gift (if you're willing to get away from single-origin) would be Cluizel's "Once Upon a Bean" presentation box for $33.95, which includes unroasted beans, roasted cacao nibs, cocoa butter, cacao liquor, and discs of chocolate in five grades of intensity, from "white chocolate" to 100%.
Valrhona. $49.95 at Chocosphere will buy you two of each of well-known French maker Valrhona's 2006 plantation bars in a wooden case. $146 will get you 40 bars of Valrhona's 2002 Chuao in a wooden case. (Amedei now has a virtual lock on Chuao production, which would make this an interesting gift for a knowledgeable chocophile.)
El Rey. $79.95 at Chocosphere will get you Venezuelan chocolate maker El Rey's La Ruta del Cacao presentation box, with nearly a pound of chocolate from four bean varieties in a wooden case.
Bonnat. Though Bonnat has a couple of presentation box products available in Europe, I've only seen the individual single-origin bars here in the US. Chocosphere sells them for $7.50 per 100-gram bar. As you now know, that's much, much cheaper than what you'd pay Noka for less of the same chocolate. However, buying the Bonnat bars would require getting by without the Taiwanese metal box. If you or your gift recipient are rich, stupid, and vain, Noka is probably the way to go."
Now....if I could just get some good red wine to go with the Noka chocolates (ok, maybe we'll go with the Bonnat instead....can't afford 1700.00 USD for a pound of NOkA chocolate. I guess someone could afford it (or NOKA would be out of business by now).
I read the series too and have to say that it seemed like a stretch. The author set out to expose NOKA, but determined through an exhaustive process that their chocolate is indeed a very high quality, very pure single-source chocolate. He feels confident that he identifies the true source of their couverture, but presents no evidence -- other than a hunch -- to counter NOKA's claim that the chocolate is made to their exacting specifications. Is it expensive? Yeah, but people buy $200 t-shirts with holes in them and $16,000 Hermes bags at Neiman's too. Are THEY worth it? Worth is completely in the mind of the individual. I also wish the author identified him/herself so we would know for sure that this wasn't a hatchet job by a competitor.
Posted by: Dan | December 29, 2006 10:43 AM | Permalink to Comment