Every Way We Put Huckleberry Into Chocolate

Chocolate and fruit usually go wrong in one direction. The fruit is too sweet, the chocolate is too sweet, and the result tastes like a candy bar pretending to be something else.

Huckleberry avoids that because it is tart enough to fight back. The flavor sits between a blueberry and a raspberry with more acid than either, and against chocolate that acidity does the same job that salt does, which is to keep the sweetness from flattening out.

Milk Chocolate, the Starting Point

If somebody has never had huckleberry, milk chocolate is where to begin. The chocolate is soft enough that the berry reads clearly, and the sweetness rounds off the tartness for anyone who finds it sharp on its own.

This is the bar people buy three of, one to eat in the car and two to take home.

Sea Salt Bark, the One for Grown Adults

Bark is a better format than a bar for a fruit this assertive, because the pieces break unevenly and you get a different ratio of berry to chocolate in every one.

The salt is what makes this version work. Salt against tart fruit against chocolate is a three-way argument where nothing wins, and that is the point. It is the one we put out when somebody says they do not have a sweet tooth.

Dark Chocolate and Honey

Dark chocolate and huckleberry are both bitter and tart in their own ways, which on paper should be too much. The honey is what resolves it, adding sweetness without adding sugar's flatness.

At four and a half dollars it is also the cheapest way to find out whether you like huckleberry at all, which is worth knowing before committing to a gift box of it.

Why Huckleberry Costs What It Does

People notice the price and ask, so here is the answer. Huckleberries have resisted commercial farming. Attempts to cultivate them have mostly failed, which means every berry in every product on our shelves was picked by hand in the mountains.

The season is short, the picking is slow, and the supply is whatever the mountains produced that year. That is the entire explanation for the price, and it is also why a huckleberry product tastes like somewhere rather than like a flavor.

White Chocolate, If You Must

We carry a white chocolate huckleberry bar and it sells, so somebody is buying it. White chocolate is not chocolate in the technical sense and the tartness has less to push against, which makes it the sweetest thing on this list by a distance.

If that is what you want, it is there. We would point you at the bark first.

What Travels and What Does Not

Bars and bark ship fine most of the year and poorly in high summer, since chocolate and a hot delivery truck end the same way every time. If you are sending somewhere warm, tell us and we will pack for it or suggest holding until it cools.

The truffles are the most fragile of the three and the bark is the most forgiving, because a broken piece of bark is still bark.

Questions We Get

What does huckleberry taste like?
Between a blueberry and a raspberry, with more tartness than either.

Are huckleberries farmed?
No. They resist cultivation, so they are picked wild in the mountains. That is why the season is short and the price is what it is.

Which one should I try first?
The milk chocolate bar if you have never had huckleberry, the sea salt bark if you do not like sweet things.

Do you ship chocolate in summer?
Yes, with care. Tell us where it is going and we will pack accordingly or suggest waiting for cooler weather.