Maybe it’s just me, but every mainstream chocolate I’ve tasted the past 5 years (at least) just doesn’t taste like it used to. Hell, I’ll even go so far as to say it doesn’t taste like chocolate! I’m talking about the mainstream chocolate’s, the ones you’ll find on your high street or at your local cornershop, not places like Hotel Chocolat. I’m not naming names but I will name some exceptions to the mainstream chocolate rule… Lindt Excellence which is always perfect (love the 70% or higher), and Thorntons – which you won’t find in your corner shop but you will find on your highstreet. Thorntons make my favourite box of chocolates, “Eden”. If you’re looking for the perfect box of chocolate’s to give your girl (or boy – let’s not be sexist) before a date, look no further…

The boxes alone make these chocolates special. They come in three different box sizes, a 79g box which contains 7 chocolates (one of each flavour), a 159g box which contains 2 of each, and a 321g box which contains 4 of each. You can clearly see the design brief for these boxes, seductive, eye-catching, “Eden”. Whichever designer (or design team) got to work with thorntons on this, they nailed it. From the colours to the silk bow, to the gold leaf on the label, everything about these chocolates says “buy me”.

The sticker on the top right actually belongs in the middle, holding the cover paper over the chocolates, but at this point they were already opened. Now, I don’t know about you but whenever I’ve bought a normal box of chocolates to share, the hard-caramel, the nuts, the plain chocolate centres, the fudge, basically all the “hard” centres, they always get left. It won’t happen with Eden, “why?” I hear you ask. There are none! They’re all soft-mousse centres (no sugary fondent either).

As you can see they come in seven different flavours, with a clever little stripe on the top of each to distinguish between them.  The flavours in question (on the left side, starting from the top) are:

Desire – Orange and double cream, covered in dark chocolate.
Seduction – Strawberries and cream, with a hint of Louis Dorrnier champagne, covered in white chocolate.
Original Sin – Double cream and créme de cacao, covered in dark chocolate.
Passion – Passion fruit and guava, covered in dark chocolate.
Temptation – Apple, fig and single cream, covered in milk chocolate.
Obsession – Mango and double cream, covered in milk chocolate.
Lust – Raspberry and mascarpone, covered in dark chocolate.

The Eden theme is consistently carried throughout, as I’m sure you can tell, but it just makes eating these all the more fun. Each chocolate is full of flavour, and none are boring. Head on over to Thorntons for the specifics. They’re my favourite chocolates for good reason.

I also recommend trying their “Coffee Creams”, if like me you’ve been having trouble finding a store (or even a box of chocolates!) that stock those. The coffee nazi’s had them removed from practically every chocolate collection out there. The only downside of those being, they’re milk chocolate, don’t you think they’d be better using 60% dark chocolate? Take the hint Thorntons .