Suphia - Chocolatier
Show Notes
Hello there and welcome to Hello from Hong Kong, this episode sees a return to our normal format, in between finding guests to share their views with regard to the ongoing protests in Hong Kong, I’m still meeting other people for regular conversations, highlighting an individual who wants to share themselves on the podcast. I’ll do my best to do both.
With that said, today we’re going to meet Sofia, a chocolatier living and working in hong kong. She sells chocolate without all the guilt, they are raw, organic, gluten free, plant based with no added sugars and there is no plastic packaging. Her IG is suphias.functional.foods and you can check out all the goodness there.
Together we talk about how she started, what were her motivations, her product over coming some hurdles
Sophias philosophy towards making foods and turns out she makes other things besides. This is a fun conversation, which I might add was recorded on location so there is some background noise and towards the end there is literally a mic drop moment so the audio suffers a bit, but not too much.
I think more suffering comes from eating her chocolate, as soon as you buy them, they’re eaten right away, that’s the true tragedy here.
Anyway, thanks for listening.
Topics covered
Why is the answer to that, to make delicious chocolate?
Can you break down how you came up with the idea and then turned it into a reality?
What were the biggest hurdles to starting?
Because apartment are so small, how do the logistics work? How do you plan your space for example and surely the problem would get worse as you get busier?
You’re a one woman operation if I remember correctly? How many bars can you make, how long does it take?
Where did you learn how to make chocolate bars?
They are homemade but the consistency is well consistent across the differing bars, because some are crunchy and some are soft, how easy is that for you?
Okay let’s talk about the bars, you have 6 flavours, peanut and sesame, crunchy mocha, black sesame and almond, cacao coconut butter, matcha and Goji Berry and cacao banana.
Why those flavours, some seem to overlap also, but having tried a few, they are different enough.
I’m going to read the ingredients of one of my favourite bars, Matcha Goji - cashew, medjool dates, pea protein, almonds, coconut oils, Matcha, sunflower seeds, goji berries, coconut, chia seeds, coconut milk powder, flax seeds, vanilla extract and himalayan salt. All healthy stuff, Now this one costs a little bit more
Now the bars have to be kept chilled in the fridge, can you explain why to the audience listeners.
How do you decide the flavours how much tasting and testing to do you?
Now the packaging is zerowaste, was that by design?
Last time we met, you also told me you have to sell the food in cardboard for legal reasons, can you explain some of that?
One of the criticisms against foodstuffs, especially the new age stuff is the clarify that no added sugars have been added, but mostly because when you check the label, enough sugar exists naturally in the first place. Your bars however don’t taste overly sweet.
Did you learn how to cook yourself or did you go to school?
Where do you see yourself going with the product? At the moment you have to be careful with its storage right so you’re limited to the more eco-friendly shops with fridges.
Why is there typically so much sugar in a bar of chocolate?
Besides your own bars of chocolate, what are your favourite chocolates?