Craft Chocolate For Gifting 2026
Discover something truly special in this craft chocolate gift guide, whether you’re treating yourself or the chocolate lovers and connoisseurs in your life this Christmas. Find British bean-to-bar chocolate, small-batch treats, hot chocolate and couverture chocolate buttons for bakers. Each one showcases exceptional flavour, craftsmanship and ethical credentials.
It’s been a while since I did some serious chocolate tasting and showcased some of the best chocolate makers in the UK. Needless to say, I enjoyed every minute of it. I can’t help but get excited at each new discovery.
The pleasure of good chocolate is in the look, feel and scent as well as the taste. It’s quite likely you may never have heard of some or even any of these, so you’re in for a real treat. Read on to work your way around some truly extraordinary finds originating from some of the best chocolate growing regions in the world.
And don’t worry if you don’t live in the UK, most of the chocolate makers featured here ship internationally.
CT kindly helped out with the chocolate tasting. He has a hard life.
Dive Right In
- What’s The Difference Between Cacao and Cocoa
- Why Is Craft Chocolate So Expensive?
- Hot Chocolate Season
- Chocolate Tree
- Chocolate Tree Bars
- Peru Choba Choba 70% Couverture
- Little Dean Chocolate
- MayHawk Craft Chocolate
- MayHawk Hot Chocolate
- MayHawk Chocolate Bars
- Manta Craft Chocolate
- Other Craft Chocolate Posts You Might Like
- Keep In Touch
- Pin It
What’s The Difference Between Cacao and Cocoa?
Cacao and cocoa both come from Theobroma cacao, which is the tree on which the beans grow. The names are often used interchangeably, so their meanings can get a bit confusing. But to all intents and purposes cacao refers to the raw beans or products such as nibs and powder that have undergone minimal processing, at relatively low temperatures.
Cocoa tends to refer to more processed products, particularly cocoa powder, which is used for drinking and in baking. Cocoa powder is made from roasted cacao beans. It’s often alkalised (also known as Dutch processing) to remove acidity and some of the bitter notes and to also give a darker colour.
The terminology isn’t rigidly applied though. Some craft chocolate makers use cacao to emphasise provenance and minimal processing, while others use cocoa, even when working with excellent quality beans.
Why Is Craft Chocolate So Expensive?
Craft chocolate makers are often micro businesses and they tend to make high quality chocolate in small batches from ethically sourced cacao beans. This means labour costs are high as are the cost of the beans. In any case, cacao prices are soaring worldwide due to extreme weather events.
Many craft chocolate makers use single origin cacao beans, both for their unique and complex flavour and their traceability. Terroir as well as the year’s harvest affects the finished chocolate, just like wine.
You’re unlikely to find the Fairtrade logo on craft chocolate bars, but that’s because they don’t need it. They not only know their suppliers, but they often know their growers too. There’s no exploitation of farmers, growers and workers here and absolutely no child labour.
So yes, craft chocolate is expensive, but what a fabulous opportunity to choose a high quality gift that also supports small businesses and growers all the way up the cacao chain.
Hot Chocolate Season
Now the nights have turned long, dark and cold, hot chocolate season is in full swing. You can use any of the pure dark chocolate bars featured here to make a really good hot chocolate. But as a gift, it’s rather lovely to receive something made specifically for the purpose. And who can resist a warming, soothing mug of rich, smooth chocolate on a chilly evening?
Chocolate Tree
Chocolate Tree creates single origin bean-to-bar organic Scottish craft chocolate. It was founded by husband and wife team, Ali and Freddy Gower in 2005. They’ve done so well they now have a micro factory in East Lothian and a shop in Edinburgh.
They make a wide variety of plain and flavoured bars as well as individual filled chocolates, hot chocolate and couverture chocolate buttons for us bakers.
The chocolate is mostly certified organic and the beans come from various smallholder farms in Central and South America. Chocolate Tree has a lot of documentation on where it sources its cacao along with inspiring stories and images of cacao related travels.
Chocolate Tree donates 1% of its turnover to global nonprofit organisations. It’s one of the many ways they’re trying to create a positive impact on both people and our one and only planet.
Distinctive swirling designs form the front or back of many of the actual chocolate bars. You can see the inspiration from the cacao and where it grows. They’re quite mesmerising.
The packaging is all biodegradable with a home compostable inner wrap and a beautifully designed outer cardboard pack.
Each pack features the Chocolate Tree strapline, “Food of the gods brought down to earth“, which says it all really. The packs also feature information about the farm from which the cacao is sourced.
Chocolate Tree: Craft Chocolate Bars
Cacao Fruit (100% Guatemala)
Ingredients: organic cocoa beans, freeze dried cacao fruit juice (30%), organic cocoa butter.
When a chocolate bar is 100% cacao, there’s nowhere to hide, so it’s the very best way to taste a specific bean variety and its terroir. We think this one tastes of tropical fruits and citrus with light tobacco notes. It’s almost sherbety and my favourite of the three.
Like fine tea, this Guatemalan bar is slightly astringent. The astringency results in a drying sensation in the mouth, which is exactly what I expect from good quality chocolate with a high cacao content. But don’t let those tannins fool you, I could happily eat the recommended 20-30g of this dark chocolate in one sitting. Er, maybe I just did!
For an extremely dark chocolate, it’s not particularly bitter and is surprisingly smooth.
70g, £7.95
Bramble & Cardamom (70% Peru)
Ingredients: organic cocoa beans, organic cane sugar, organic cocoa butter, organic blackberries (2%), cardamom
An autumnal bar of organic dark chocolate flavoured with cardamom and topped with dried blackberries. Cardamom can be a difficult spice to get right. Too little and you can’t really taste it, too much and it tastes soapy. This bar gets it just right.
The cardamom flavour comes through first followed by blackberry. The chocolate is smooth on the tongue, though the blackberries are quite seedy. It tastes almost peppery.
100g, £5.95
Jekyll & Hyde (70% Colombia)
Ingredients: organic cacao beans, organic cocoa butter, organic sugar, organic milk powder (12.5%).
A cleverly named and striking bar of bitter 100% dark chocolate marbled with sweet white chocolate. The white chocolate ameliorates the dark, which in turn offsets the sweetness of the white. It’s a fabulous combination.
The cacao beans for this chocolate are rare. They come from the indigenous Arhuaco community of Colombia, guardians of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
80g, £6.95
Peru Choba Choba 70% Couverture
Ingredients: organic cacao beans, organic cane sugar, organic cocoa butter.
For bakers and budding chocolate makers or just those that like nibbling on good quality chocolate buttons, this couverture is a must try.
The chocolate is made from cacao grown in the Huayabamba valley, at the gateway to the Amazon jungle in Peru. Just the thought of those cacao beans from the Peruvian jungle makes me want to head to the kitchen and bake. Making some of my own chocolates might be an idea too.
As soon as I opened the bag, rich, aromatic fruity chocolate notes emanated upwards. It didn’t take long to scent the whole room – absolutely delightful.
The buttons are the perfect size for melting. The first notes to come through when you taste them are both fruity and tangy then woody tones emerge. The chocolate is very complex and very delicious. The two flavours pull in opposite directions, keeping us on our toes.
500g bag (made from recycled plastic), £19.95
Littledean Chocolate
Littledean Chocolate is a micro craft chocolate business created by Rosalind. She specialises in a range of handmade chocolate bars in different sizes. From white chocolate, to milk and dark milk as well as dark. The cacao beans used to make the milk chocolate come from Madagascar and the beans for the dark chocolate come from Colombia.
Amongst a number of more elaborate creations, she also makes realistic looking chocolate tool sets and chocolate trains for the little ones.
The best way to sample Littledean Chocolate is to get a selection of mini bars. You can buy them individually or build your own six bar collection. The collection is the cutest package of chocolate bars I’ve ever come across. It comes in a box tied up with string which looks just like a parcel sent from the other side of the world, which it sort of is. Who could resist?
And when you open the box, you get six gorgeous 25g mini chocolate bars to try. “Made for your enjoyment, anytime, anywhere.” Mine contained two 40% milk chocolate bars, a 50% milk chocolate, a 65% dark chocolate, a 65% dark ginger flavoured chocolate and a bar of white chocolate.
They’re the perfect size for snacking, without over indulging. And the set makes a most fabulous gift for anyone who likes good quality chocolate and a bit of variety. It’s great as a family gift too as everyone can choose their personal favourite. Come on you lot, no fighting.
All of the five bars CT and I tried were delightfully different and all very edible indeed. These are not single estate bean-to-bar chocolates with complex flavour notes, but they are really good quality chocolate, the kind you just want to get stuck into. So we did.
6 bar gift pack (150g), £12.50
The Bars
Ingredients: cocoa beans or cocoa nibs, sugar, cocoa butter, sea salt (some also contain: whole milk powder, ground vanilla, ground ginger)
65% dark – Has a good snap, is slightly fruity and easy on the palate. It’s a very nice dark chocolate.
50% dark milk – Coffee notes burst out of this one as soon as you bite into it. It’s slightly sharp with a more robust flavour than the 40% milk. Absolutely delicious and my favourite.
40% milk – The perfect soothing milk chocolate with light caramel tones and a creamy, luxurious mouthfeel. It’s not overly sweet and feels suitably indulgent.
White – Remarkably unsweet for white chocolate, this bar has integrity without the feeling it’s trying to mask other ingredients. It has a slight smoky taste and subtle vanilla tones. It’s creamy, not at all sickly and very easy to eat.
Ginger, 65% dark – Powerful and purifying, you can taste that ginger and it hits the back of the throat quite delightfully. Ginger lovers will enjoy this one.
MayHawk Craft Chocolate
Established way back in 2007 by Conner Haines, MayHawk is one of the oldest bean-to-bar chocolate makers in the UK. He was later joined by Jak Jones. They take their chocolate making very seriously indeed and all of their products are made with ethically sourced single-origin cacao beans.
You’ll find tons of information on their website, from tasting notes, to serving suggestions to the importance of single origin beans to supply chains and how the chocolate is made.
MayHawk take environmental concerns extremely seriously too. They’ve done much to reduce their environmental impact over the years and aim to be completely carbon neutral by 2032.
Packaging is both designed and made in-house using original artwork. Indeed the artwork is stunning and well worth a look. Everything is 100% plastic-free and completely recyclable at every touch point. I’m not sure I want to recycle the cardboard wrappers though, as they look so good, but if I did I’d just put them into our compost bin.
They even grow some of their own ingredients – organic of course.
Hot Chocolate (100% Colombia)
Ingredients: 100% single estate cacao beans
Cubes of dark chocolate wrapped in gold and silver foil and presented in a well structured elegant white box makes this hot chocolate ideal for gifting.
If you like a rich, thick and dark chocolatey hot chocolate, this one’s for you. The chocolate comes in six bars consisting of three large squares. Each square weighs 10g. Talk about indulgence.
The chocolate is 100% cacao which means it’s up to you to add a sweetener of choice, or not. The chocolate melts easily into hot liquid and works just as well with water as it does with dairy or plant milk. If you prefer a lighter drink, just add two squares rather than three.
I love it that you have total control of just how rich, sweet or milky you want your hot chocolate. A dusting of spice, a scoop of cream or a dash of spirits are good options and all add to the fun.
A little goes a long way with this hot chocolate. There’s plenty of cacao to satisfy any chocolate craving and I found that two smaller servings, rather than one large one, were just right for a leisurely sip.
As a hot chocolate lover, I absolutely adore the generosity of these gold wrapped chunks of 100% cacao. This means not only do you get a gorgeously rich cup of hot chocolate every time, but you can make it as sweet (or not) as you like.
The chocolate melts beautifully into the hot liquid of your choice, be that dairy, plant milk or water. A milk frother, helps mix and aerate, but it’s not necessary.
I made mine with a little hot maple syrup, which took the edge off the darkness and gave a little heat, but didn’t detract from that unctuous deliciousness.
6 x 3 chunky squares, (180g, 6.3 oz) £21
Chocolate Bars
Two bars wrapped in gold and silver foil in attractively designed cardboard boxes.
There’s plenty of information on the back and sides of the packs as to the origin of the cacao and even when the cacao was harvested. Also included is a suggested serving size, which is a nice touch for those of us who are inclined to be a bit greedy, ahem!
Each bar is designed for two servings.
Hazelnut Chocolate (60% Huila Region, Andes, Columbia)
Ingredients: cocoa beans, hazelnuts, cocoa butter, maple syrup, cane sugar, sea salt.
This stunning bar not only contains whole hazelnuts roasted with salt and maple syrup, but the chocolate itself is made with roasted hazelnut butter. In other words it’s gianduja.
You can smell the roasted hazelnuts as soon as you open the wrapper. Unlike some gianduja I’ve tried, the chocolate actually tastes of lightly roasted hazelnuts too. And that’s before you bite into a crunchy whole hazelnut.
This is partly because the chocolate is very well made and uses good quality cacao beans, but also because it’s not overwhelmed with sugar. With 60% cacao and 30% hazelnuts, there’s not a lot of room left over for the maple syrup and cane sugar. I for one do not regret that.
It’s very smooth on the tongue, has good chocolate flavour and has the aforementioned drying note, which is generally a sign of good quality chocolate.
Taste this once and your Nutella eating experience might just be spoiled forever.
70g (2.5 oz), £9.95
Darksome Milk Chocolate (60% Huila Region, Andes, Columbia)
Ingredients: cocoa beans, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, cane sugar.
Oh yes, yes, yes to a really good dark milk chocolate! Despite my sweet tooth, I find most milk chocolate a bit sickly. But dark milk chocolate is another matter and is in fact my absolute favourite. You get all of the flavour, without too much sweetness. Anything over 40% is good, but the best are those that are at least 49% and this 60% bar may be the very best of all.
It has a nice snap, light fruity tones with hints of whisky; it all adds up to give an even more luxurious experience. The mouthfeel is silky, the chocolate is creamy and it’s plenty sweet enough – absolutely gorgeous.
With its star spangled packaging, this bar is just what’s needed for your favourite person’s Christmas stocking. Are you reading me CT?
57g (2oz), £8
Manta Craft Chocolate
Formerly known as House of Chocolate, Manta is a bean-to-bar raw chocolate maker with an emphasis on plant-based, unrefined, clean ingredients. The bars are all free from dairy, gluten, refined sugar and chemical additives.
The cardboard wrappers are attractively functional with the ingredients displayed with pride right there on the front cover. “Made from plants, chosen for their flavour and preserved to keep the nutrients they have when they’re alive.“
Manta use Fino de Aroma cacao beans from an organic farm in Madagascar to make their chocolate. To keep their inherent nutritional profile as well as flavour, their beans are fermented but not roasted.
When it comes to sugar, Manta make their own natural sweeteners by dehydrating fruit and vegetables such as grapes, mango and carrots.
The moulding on the chocolate is a cleverly designed M for Manta, but it’s not obvious unless you look for it. At first glance it just looks like an interesting swirly pattern.
In the past, I’ve tried their bright orange sea buckthorn bar and a blue blueberry, mint cornflower and mallow bar. Both were extraordinary. Although the blueberry bar is no longer on offer, I have noticed boxes of chocolate covered blueberries, which I’d very much like to find in my Christmas stocking. Hint hint…
Dark chocolate Fino de Aroma Cacao (75%)
Ingredients: cacao beans, grape juice, vanilla
I’ve tried several raw chocolate bars over the years and although they’re all perfectly pleasant, they somehow don’t quite cut it as the sort of chocolate we know and love. This bar is something else. If you didn’t know it was made with raw chocolate, you wouldn’t guess.
It has a lovely dark colour and smells deliciously of good quality dark chocolate. The snap is excellent and you get a good hit of dark chocolate when you bite into it.
Let it melt on the tongue and you get a gorgeously smooth mouthfeel. It’s not at all bitter but has a light note of aromatic cardamom. This is straight up unpretentious chocolate that isn’t overly sweet and tastes quite delicious.
The taste lingers long after the chocolate has disappeared.
65g (2.3oz), £11
Mylk Chocolate (Almond Mylk Chocolate 55%)
Ingredients: cacao beans, almonds (16%), oats, grape juice, pine nut oil
This dairy-free “milk” chocolate bar sings caramel. It has an enticing caramel scent and a wonderful creamy mouthfeel as it rolls across your tongue. On trying it, CT’s first exclamation was “I can’t believe it’s not dairy“.
The caramel notes make it taste a bit like a classy bar of old fashioned Caramac, but nowhere near as sweet. And it has a good snap to it too.
Just like the dark chocolate version, this raw chocolate bar tastes, feels and behaves just like “real” chocolate.
65g (2.3oz), £11
Other Craft Chocolate Posts You Might Like
Keep in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you try any of these craft chocolate I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do share photos on your preferred social media site and tag me @choclette8, so I can spot them.
For more delicious and nutritious recipes follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard or Pinterest. And don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to my weekly newsletter. Or why not join the conversation in our Healthy Vegetarian Whole Food Recipes Facebook Group?
If you’d like more chocolate reviews, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them.
Choclette x
Craft Chocolates For Gifting. PIN IT.