Saratoga Chocolates

Saratoga Chocolates
14572 Big Basin Way
Saratoga, California 95057
(408) 872-1431
www.saratogachocolates.com

Vitals:
Sun-Mon: 11-5
Tues-Thurs: 11-7
Fri: 11-8

I’m not a chocolate connoisseur and I’ll certainly never turn down a piece of See’s chocolate, but there is something about finding a local artisanal chocolatier that makes exceptional chocolates. I stumbled upon this place while walking through Saratoga’s downtown. It’s a really quaint place that has small town charm and it’s a perfect launch pad to explore the Santa Cruz mountains. After you take a hike in Big Basin State Park (wonderful park filled with redwood trees) or Castle Rock State Park, take a stroll around downtown and reward yourself by sampling some delicious bites of pure chocolate bliss.

From talking to the employees, I found out that the chocolates are handmade confections that are made with local ingredients and contain no preservatives. The offerings are innovative and the end results are amazing. Sometimes, I had to literally sit back and enjoy and just let the flavors meld together.

Pictured above are notable chocolates: a salted caramel, a dark chocolate caramel, a ganache filled dark chocolate flavored with Earl Grey tea and a chili spiced ganache filled chocolate. The salted caramel was interesting and the caramel was not too sweet and wasn’t overpowered by the salt (I’ve had salted caramel desserts before and they were too salty – almost distracting). Sometimes I get a tea flavored chocolate and I can’t taste any tea flavor, not so with this one. Earl Grey has a distinct flavor (it’s a black tea that is flavored with essential oil from the rind of the bergamot orange) and this unique flavor showed through and blended well with the sumptuous dark chocolate ganache. The chili spiced chocolate reminds me of spiced hot chocolates I’ve had before. I could taste the heat from the chili and there also seemed to be a hint of cinnamon. I thought that it would be strange to have something that is meant to be sweet spiced up, but it worked. Everything here is good and I’m definitely looking to my next trip there. Each chocolate was about $1.75 each. A bit pricey, but worth every penny.