A Candy Eating Experience: Patchi Chocolates

Friday, December 28, 2007 - by MichelleG

Patisseries, chocolate shops, candy aisles and gourmet food products are often based first and foremost on the visual experience. Perfect lines of cocoa-dusted truffles, bright packaging, glistening danishes, piles of dark chocolate chips – eating indulgent food is as much about the sensory experience as it is about the food itself.

Patchi is an international (Lebanese in origin) chocolate company which relies heavily on visual stimuli to market their products. Since 1974 Patchi has been producing exquisite-looking confections. The chocolate itself is beautifully wrapped – metallic papers, tiny little ribbons and bows, minuscule silk flowers and even tinier crystal baubles and decorations.

With packaging as gorgeous as this, you almost feel guilty about opening each tiny piece. They even follow fashion trends, with Patchi chocolates sporting different packaging based on the seasons. Absolutely everything about Patchi screams “money” – from the website’s virtual tour of their headquarters (five floors, located in Lebanon) to the shiny, silky-to-touch brown bag my chocolates came in.

Walking into a Patchi shop is a real experience. The chocolate is sold alongside tableware, very high end glass decorative pieces, and various home design products. The chocolates and treats look far too beautiful to eat, while the table decor and glass sculptural pieces make you wish your house wasn’t furnished by IKEA.

The staff are all impeccably dressed, the counters have not a speck of dust and you feel as though you have arrived in your own secret chocolate palace. A friend recently gave me a Patchi selection box as a gift. I’ve been saving it for several weeks, just enjoying looking at the gorgeous packaging. When I finally, carefully, slowly opened a chocolate to eat, I was sadly disappointed.

With 52 different chocolate varieties, Patchi caters to a wide range of tastes. Unfortunately, my taste wasn’t one of them. The first piece I tried was a milk chocolate with nougat (not dissimilar to Toblerone) and, while nice, was decidedly average in flavor. The second was like the world’s most expensive Kit Kat – a small finger of chocolate wafers coated in milk chocolate. As I ate each chocolate, I marveled at the expensive foil, the tiny little Patchi stickers, the perfectness of each morsel… and then came crashing back down to earth with the taste. Several of them tasted burnt.

Some were nice (the wafer finger in particular) while others had that unfortunate burned chocolate aftertaste. Also somewhat annoying was the fact that in the selection box I received, there is no guide to flavors. So until you actually eat it, you have no idea of what flavor it is or what lies beneath its beautiful exterior.

I really wanted these to be the end all and be all of luxury chocolates. The packaging, the stores, the website – the whole thing leads to what you think will be an unforgettable experience. It was unforgettable… as a crushing disappointment to actually eat.

I guess it’s true what they say – you can’t judge a chocolate by its (expensive, gorgeous, perfect) cover. Clearly, I’ve been foiled! (ha!)

• Patchi Chocolates

chocolate, Lebanon, gourmet