Here at Maui Ku'ia Estate Chocolate, have a lot of different flavors! Not only do we offer incredible single origin chocolate that tastes unique because of the terroir the beans are grown in, but we also have 9 flavors that are added to the chocolate - and they all come in dark and dark milk! Have you tried them all? We suggest ordering an assorted flavors bag if you want to sample a wide variety of them.
But you're curious and so, you ask yourself... how do you add flavors to chocolate? How do we get the taste of our very own fresh Maui grown fruits into our chocolate and keep such a smooth consistency and true flavor? Where are the flavors grown?
Read Gunars' notes below to learn all about our flavored chocolate! We've also included suggested beverage pairings just for fun.
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"I am an advocate of adding flavors to base chocolate if the flavor complements the base chocolate. We have two types of flavors, essential oils or dry powders. Powdered flavors that we use are mango, guava, coffee and calamansi, a tropical lime native to the Philippines that is widely grown in Hawaii."
"We grow Mapulehu mangos on our Lahaina cacao farm and when they are perfectly ripe, I think they are the best tasting mango. Our farmers pick them, and we process the mango into a puree that is frozen to preserve the flavor. However, purees are mostly water and cannot be added to chocolate, so we work with a large flavoring company that has the equipment to make a dry powder from our mangos. The powder is added on the day of tempering and molding the chocolate. Much like the cacao particles in chocolate, the mango powder is tiny particles that are released when the chocolate melts and disintegrate into flavor molecules that you taste. The fresh taste of Mapulehu mango in our chocolate is a wonderful combination. In our dark milk chocolate, the mango flavor is sweeter than in our dark chocolate." SHOP NOW
Suggested Beverage Pairings:
Sparkling White - pairs best with dark milk Mango; we love La Marca Prosecco, Sauvage Gruet Blanc de Blancs and Collet Brut Champagne.
Nigori Sake - less dry, more sweet; we love Sho Chiku Bai Nigori Mild Silky Sake.
Tequila - stick to blanco or charcoal purified, less oaky flavor; we love Don Fulano Blanco Tequila or Komos Añejo Cristalino.
"Calamansi is the Filipino name for calamondin lime and is widely grown in Hawaii for its unique aromatic flavor. The fruit comes from my home orchard and is bright orange when it is ripe. The whole fruit is vacuum-sealed and frozen to preserve the flavor. When it is thawed, it is crushed using a potato ricer and the juice with some essential oil is frozen for later processing into a dry powder by a large flavoring company on the mainland. We add the powder to the chocolate on the day of tempering and molding. The particles in the powder are released when the chocolate melts and disintegrate into flavor molecules that you taste. The complex lime flavor of calamansi in our dark milk chocolate is mellowed out by the presence of milk." SHOP NOW
Suggested Beverage Pairings:
Sauvignon Blanc - pairs best with dark milk Calamansi; we love Sancerre Domaine Auchère.
Sémillon - pairs best with dark milk Calamansi; we love Andis.
Amaro Montenegro - aromatics pair wonderfully with Calamansi.
Nigori Sake - less dry, more sweet; we love Sho Chiku Bai Nigori Silky Mild Sake.
Tequila - stick to blanco or charcoal purified, less oaky flavor; we love Don Fulano Blanco Tequila or Komos Añejo Cristalino.
"I pick wild guava in Kapalua where I live because it has more intense flavors than farmed guava. We make a puree from the whole fruit and use a sieve to remove the small, hard seeds before freezing the puree to preserve the flavor. We send the frozen puree to a large flavoring company that has the equipment to make a dry powder that we add to the chocolate on the day of tempering and molding. The particles in the powder are released when the chocolate melts and disintegrate into flavor molecules that you taste. The guava flavor pairs wonderfully with our dark milk chocolate and is a little more prominent in our dark chocolate." SHOP NOW
Suggested Beverage Pairings:
Sparkling Rosé - less dry; we love Lokelani by Maui Wine.
Nigori Sake - less dry, more sweet; we love Sho Chiku Bai Nigori Silky Mild Sake.
Tequila - stick to blanco or charcoal purified, less oaky flavor; we love Don Fulano Blanco Tequila or Komos Añejo Cristalino.
Coconut Rum - we love RumHaven's coconut water rum.
"We use a unique coffee that is grown on Maui called Maui Mokka Coffee. It is grown in Kā'anapali about 4 miles from our chocolate factory. The coffee has notes of chocolate with very little bitterness, so we think it is a perfect match for our chocolate. The roasted beans are ground to a fine espresso grind for our use but that is too coarse for direct use in the chocolate, so we mill it together with the cacao in our ball mill to reduce both cacao and coffee to 15-micron particle size. Such small particles are released when the chocolate melts in your mouth and the particles rapidly dissolve into flavor molecules that you can taste. Sadly, the retail store and warehouse where the coffee is stored and roasted were burned in the Lahaina fire. The coffee farm was not affected but there will be no harvest until the 2024 harvest in the fall. We have enough coffee to get through the year and hope that the coffee farm resumes operations and has a bountiful harvest this fall. We make two milk chocolates with this coffee, one in 58% dark milk chocolate (2% coffee) and one in our 55% Maui milk chocolate “cappuccino” (7.5% coffee)." SHOP NOW
Suggested Beverage Pairings:
Sherry - less dry, more sweet like a cream sherry; we love Lustau East India Solera Sherry.
Dark Rum - we love Diplomático Reserva Exclusiva.
Whiskey - pairs best with dark milk Mokka chocolate; we love Woodford Reserve.
Porters and Stouts - we love Coconut Porter by Maui Brew Co.
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"The essential oils are highly purified food grade oils purified using steam distillation and we purchase them directly from the manufacturers. We use four essential oils, peppermint, lemongrass, blood orange, and yuzu, a Japanese citrus fruit. I selected these from about 30 that I tried, and they are the only ones I liked. Essential oils dissolve in the cocoa butter that is in chocolate so that the flavor is immediately tasted when the chocolate starts to melt."
"We add peppermint essential oil to our dark milk chocolate to complement the base flavor of the chocolate. Essential oil flavors are reduced in intensity when added to milk chocolate because there is a protein in milk, casein, that is known to bind flavor molecules so that they cannot interact with flavor receptors. This is a general property of casein and that is why milk products can be used to cool off your mouth after eating spicy foods. In comparison with dark chocolate, it takes more peppermint oil to achieve the same intensity of peppermint flavor in the chocolate." SHOP NOW
Suggested Beverage Pairings:
Irish Liqueur - pairs best with dark milk peppermint; we love Five Farms Irish Liqueur.
"We use two blood orange essential oils from two different vendors to create our blood orange dark milk chocolate. Because blood orange essential oil can be a little bitter (it is distilled from the fruit), I have chosen two oils, one that is sweeter than the other, to reduce the bitterness of the mixture. A little bitterness is needed to achieve the desired orange flavor. The milk tends to reduce the intensity of the flavor so that it is not as bright as the same flavor in dark chocolate. Blood orange essential oil is also added to our OMG dark milk chocolate and provides an immediate orange flavor as the chocolate starts to melt before the mango and guava flavors emerge." SHOP NOW
Suggested Beverage Pairings:
Sparkling Rosé - less dry; we love Lokelani by Maui Wine.
Zibibbo - incredible pairing; we love Donnafugata Ben Ryé.
Amaro Montenegro - aromatics pair wonderfully.
Sherry - less dry, more sweet like a cream sherry; we love Lustau East India Solera Sherry.
Nigori Sake - less dry, more sweet; we love Sho Chiku Bai Nigori Silky Mild Sake.
Tequila - stick to blanco or charcoal purified, less oaky flavor; we love Don Fulano Blanco Tequila or Komos Añejo Cristalino.
Coconut Rum - we love RumHaven's coconut water rum.
"When added to dark milk chocolate, lemongrass essential oil retains its essential aromatic character. I find it surprisingly refreshing and it is a good complement to Asian cuisine. You can also take advantage of the milk protein to lessen the aftereffects of eating spicy food because the milk protein will bind those spicy molecules and reduce any discomfort." SHOP NOW
Suggested Beverage Pairings:
Nigori Sake - less dry, more sweet; we love Sho Chiku Bai Nigori Silky Mild Sake. In fact, this sake with our lemongrass chocolate is one of our favorite chocolate and beverage pairings!
Amaro Montenegro - aromatics pair wonderfully.
Tequila - stick to blanco or charcoal purified, less oaky flavor; we love Don Fulano Blanco Tequila or Komos Añejo Cristalino.
Coconut Rum - we love RumHaven's coconut water rum.
"Yuzu is a Japanese citrus fruit that has a tart and aromatic flavor that resembles grapefruit. When adding it to our dark milk chocolate, I decided that I wanted some extra complexity, so I mixed two chocolates, our award-winning 70% dark chocolate made from beans sourced from the Semuliki Forest area in Uganda and our 58% dark milk chocolate with 2% Maui Mokka coffee. The resulting dark milk chocolate is 64% cacao, 10% milk, and 1% coffee with yuzu accenting the complex flavors. We also encourage you to try our dark chocolate with yuzu that is a more pure version of yuzu essential oil in chocolate." SHOP NOW
Suggested Beverage Pairings:
Nigori Sake - less dry, more sweet; we love Sho Chiku Bai Nigori Silky Mild Sake.
Amaro Montenegro - aromatics pair wonderfully.
"OMG (orange/mango/guava) is the combination of three of our favorite flavors in chocolate. It creates a unique flavor experience because the physical properties of the three flavors cause them to become prominent at different times. Blood orange essential oil dissolves in the cocoa butter and the flavor is apparent as soon as the chocolate starts to melt. The mango and the guava flavors are powders which means they are particles that must disintegrate to release the flavor molecules. On my palate, the mango flavor becomes apparent 10-15 seconds after the blood orange and the guava appears shortly after that. The blood orange dissipates while the mango and guava flavors intensify and the guava becomes more dominant at the end, especially after the chocolate is swallowed and you are enjoying the residual chocolate." SHOP NOW
Suggested Beverage Pairings:
Sparkling Rosé - less dry; we love Lokelani by Maui Wine.
Zibibbo - we love Donnafugata Ben Ryé.
Nigori Sake - less dry, more sweet; we love Sho Chiku Bai Nigori Silky Mild Sake.
Tequila - stick to blanco or charcoal purified, less oaky flavor; we love Don Fulano Blanco Tequila or Komos Añejo Cristalino.
Coconut Rum - we love RumHaven's coconut water rum.
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Which are your top three or four different flavors?! Did you know that you can actually customize your own craft chocolate Gift Box? Pick out your favorite flavors to make your own unique chocolate assortment or choose a theme like a beverage pairing. The possible combinations are seemingly endless! Plus, a customized box of our made in Maui chocolate makes the perfect gift.
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