Fall Holiday Chocolate Salon Awards announced for 2024

Keep killing it with the new flavor combinations and high quality products! I look forward to someone crafting the Golden Chai Latte (turmeric, cardamom, ginger) health & wellness bar soon 🙂
Wow! I 🩵 chocolate! Yummy! Love all the tropical flavors, fruit ganache ingredients were my favorite! Lots of fruit infused chocolates like passion fruit, mango, lemon, raspberry…
thank you! for hot chocolate! I love “Judge”ing. Hug
All were delicious
"- p.o.p.'s maple bacon toffee is salty and sweet delicious as expected (can't really go wrong with bacon!). But I also found a surprisingly tasty combination in p.o.p.'s spicy almond crunch butter toffee - it's definitely got a bit of a kick to it. Spicy but tasty - and it's a toffee? Their savory butter toffees are mind boggling in a good way.
- COBA's matcha and hojicha bars are excellent - strong in their respective tea tastes and smooth, they do indeed resemble rich, real matcha and hojicha latte drinks - and not the wimpy ones. These were thoroughly enjoyed by this tea lover, who have tried her share of tea flavored chocolates from many brands over the years. Maybe it's good that the COBA bars come in a small snacks size for the sake of my own portion control. Even though this vendor only had a small chocolate offering (just 4 flavors), these two really stood out.
- Appreciate the patience and enthusiasm from Cacao Regina in taking us through the complete sampling flight all the way from the 100% cacao down to their dark milk chocolates, from Tanzania to Peru. With the quality of the products that they have to offer, you would not have guessed that they have only formally been in business for 4 months - bravo. My recommendation is for them to test out more variety of smooth blended nut options beyond hazelnut, and to do so with their dark chocolates also. This is something different than what other chocolatiers tend to offer.
- Anyone will agree that aL ChocoLat's confections are beautiful to look at on the outside, and it's nice when there is "inner beauty" to match - e.g. their passionfruit is creamy, sweet and tart with passionfruit fragrance; it is more on the sweet side than tart side, but not overly sweet either - an enticing one that I can reach back for again and again. Coming from someone that had grown passionfruits in our own backyard for years.
- CocoTutti's liquid vanilla caramel chocolate was supposed to impress but actually did not particularly wow me; however, their strawberry balsamic came across with a great farmers market ripe, sweet strawberry flavor. That was a good one for me personally."
This was the hardest year to judge. Exceptional quality and variety of the chocolatiers/products. Several companies introduced mango with chocolate in completely different ways. Mouthwatering!
So much creativity and high quality chocolates! Even in these uncertain times it was so heartening to see the vendors at the Salon still giving it their all and working out ways to keep us in artisan chocolate in the future. I especially liked seeing vendors discussing ideas together. Maybe we will see some new collaborations soon? TY all for hope and chocolate.
I found that many of the new entries were compelling and delicious.
Chocs&Boxes had nice flavor profiles with the blueberry.
Blue Candy and both delicious flavors and attractive packaging which caught my attention. Solo from Sonoma County captured the terroir of Guatemala, Vanny's had engaging combinations of flavors and Caco Regina had some delicious flavors from Tanzania. Michael's pistachio cardamon was a melt in your mouth symphony of flavors. There were many who used mango in their product and this was a delicious surprise.
I especially liked P.O.P.'s wide range of deliciously flavored butter crisp toffees (especially the Rosewater Cardamom and Whiskey Cordial Butter Crunch), aL Chocolate Boutique's exotic flavored ganaches and gorgeous finishes.
al Chocolate Boutique's bonbons are as tasty as they are beautiful. And the flavors are both exceptional and unexpected.

OFFICIAL CHOCOLATE SALON AWARD RESULTS: JUDGES

GOLD

SILVER

BRONZE

Top Artisan Chocolatier

GOLD

SILVER

BRONZE

HONORABLE MENTION

Most Delicious Ingredient Combinations

GOLD

SILVER

BRONZE

HONORABLE MENTION

Best Traditional Chocolates

GOLD

SILVER

BRONZE

HONORABLE MENTION

Best Chocolate Bar

GOLD

SILVER

BRONZE

HONORABLE MENTION

Best Milk Chocolates

GOLD

SILVER

BRONZE

Best Dark Chocolates

GOLD

SILVER

BRONZE

HONORABLE MENTION

Best Caramels or Truffles

GOLD

SILVER

BRONZE

HONORABLE MENTION

Best Organic or Fair Trade Products

GOLD

SILVER

BRONZE

HONORABLE MENTION

Best Comfort Chocolate or Snack Product

GOLD

SILVER

BRONZE

HONORABLE MENTION

New Product Award

GOLD

SILVER

BRONZE

HONORABLE MENTION

Best in Salon

GOLD

SILVER

BRONZE

HONORABLE MENTION

JUDGES COMMENTS

OFFICIAL CHOCOLATE SALON AWARD RESULTS: ATTENDEES CHOICE

GOLD

SILVER

BRONZE

Best Dark Chocolate

GOLD

SILVER

BRONZE

Best Milk Chocolate

GOLD

SILVER

BRONZE

Most Delicious Ingredient Combinations

GOLD

SILVER

BRONZE

HONORABLE MENTION

Best Caramel or Truffles

GOLD

SILVER

BRONZE