Choci's Story
Choci K.K. was founded in 2018 April. The founders are a group of foreigners and Japanese who have lived in Japan for many years. At our heart is a youthful Joie de Vivre for Life and Chocolate! We wanted to bring the joys of fantastic quality chocolate balls to Japan. The Company decided on “Choci Tokyo” as the brand for the store to depict its location in the heart of Tokyo and “Choci” is an abbreviation of Chocolate -- like when friends call each other they often have abbreviated or nick-names for their special friends. Our team has a French chocolatier creating the recipes and flavours.
The inspiration for the store comes from France where Patisseries and Chocolatiers create “dragee” or chocolate balls using panning machines like in our Yotsuya 3-chome Shinjuku kitchen in the store. Visually beautiful, the balls core consists of, seeds, nuts or semi-dried fruit and not a ganache. We decided such balls could be displayed in a wonderful joyous way and we have worked hard to create a visually stimulating chocolate ball store. We aim to introduce Japanese to natural quality fruit and nut and popcorn caramel chocolate balls which are unusual now in Japan. We hope we can bring a Joie de Vivre to people’s lives through our delicious products and store environment.
We have wonderfully tall dispensers lining the walls in our Choci store for Chocolate lovers to mix and match their favorite colours, flavours and textures. For the less intrepid, we have all our chocolate balls pre-packed singularly as well in some pre-mixes. Our flagship ball is our Strawberry Strawberry Chocolate ball which is also our most popular. With almost 20 items to choose from, there is always a chocolate ball flavor that will appeal to our customers. In the future we will bring in seasonal ball flavours like yuzu, pistachio, raisons, and blueberries.
The inspiration for the store comes from France where Patisseries and Chocolatiers create “dragee” or chocolate balls using panning machines like in our Yotsuya 3-chome Shinjuku kitchen in the store. Visually beautiful, the balls core consists of, seeds, nuts or semi-dried fruit and not a ganache. We decided such balls could be displayed in a wonderful joyous way and we have worked hard to create a visually stimulating chocolate ball store. We aim to introduce Japanese to natural quality fruit and nut and popcorn caramel chocolate balls which are unusual now in Japan. We hope we can bring a Joie de Vivre to people’s lives through our delicious products and store environment.
We have wonderfully tall dispensers lining the walls in our Choci store for Chocolate lovers to mix and match their favorite colours, flavours and textures. For the less intrepid, we have all our chocolate balls pre-packed singularly as well in some pre-mixes. Our flagship ball is our Strawberry Strawberry Chocolate ball which is also our most popular. With almost 20 items to choose from, there is always a chocolate ball flavor that will appeal to our customers. In the future we will bring in seasonal ball flavours like yuzu, pistachio, raisons, and blueberries.
We use the finest grand cru chocolate from France and we source the best fruit and nut ingredients from all over the world. Our products are pure and natural and we don’t use artificial preservatives. The shelf life is typically 3~6 months depending on storage conditions—in the store we keep the humidity down and the temperature to around 18~20 degrees Celsius. We produce all our chocolate balls in our store kitchen here in Yotsuya 3-chome Shinjuku and we roast all the nuts we use.
Making chocolate balls in our Choci way requires time patience and skills. Our panning machine is one of the best Italian crafted machines for professionals. Depending on the center we are making, creating the Choci balls is more or less complicated and requires constant small adjustments. Most of our products are double coated meaning it takes twice the time to make it. It is all about adjusting the spinning speed according to the variety of the center, the size and consistency i.e. harder or softer, the temperature, the type of chocolate and the flow of chocolate. As we are using semi-dried fruits and nuts and not making a compote or a ganache, this gives us a wonderful inner ball texture. The taste comes from the center of course which is balanced by the first layer of chocolate. The second layer, when there is one, is for the color and as we use natural ingredients to make the color the outer coating has a taste too and enhances the chocolate ball itself. We decided to not go with the easy shortcut which would had been to use synthetic colors or colouring agents. We choose the taste first and play with different textures of center and chocolate. Some combination are easy to understand and some requires a little bit more contemplation of the aromas and taste.
Making chocolate balls in our Choci way requires time patience and skills. Our panning machine is one of the best Italian crafted machines for professionals. Depending on the center we are making, creating the Choci balls is more or less complicated and requires constant small adjustments. Most of our products are double coated meaning it takes twice the time to make it. It is all about adjusting the spinning speed according to the variety of the center, the size and consistency i.e. harder or softer, the temperature, the type of chocolate and the flow of chocolate. As we are using semi-dried fruits and nuts and not making a compote or a ganache, this gives us a wonderful inner ball texture. The taste comes from the center of course which is balanced by the first layer of chocolate. The second layer, when there is one, is for the color and as we use natural ingredients to make the color the outer coating has a taste too and enhances the chocolate ball itself. We decided to not go with the easy shortcut which would had been to use synthetic colors or colouring agents. We choose the taste first and play with different textures of center and chocolate. Some combination are easy to understand and some requires a little bit more contemplation of the aromas and taste.
