Elements Truffles adds hot chocolate to its line at NY NOW
Alak Vasa with Elements Truffles not chocolate at NY NOW
Elements Truffles added a turmeric-infused Drinking Hot Chocolate Mix to its line of artisanal chocolates at last week’s summer NY NOW home/lifestyle/gift market trade show at New York’s Javits Center.
The Jersey City-based vegan chocolatier’s new offering is handmade in micro batches from raw, organic and fair trade Peruvian cacao.
“I like hot chocolate, but I find that most of it is too sweet and has everything but chocolate in it!” said Elemental Truffles founder/chef Alak Vasa. “It has more milk and sugar, and uses only chocolate powder and not the rich butter or liquor.”
Vasa further distinguished her mix in its use of coconut palm sugar as the sweetener.
“It’s low-glycemic,” she said, “and the turmeric is good for you: It requires a bit of fat for it to be absorbed, and the cocoa paste [butter] has fat. So it’s a nice little treat, but at the same time it’s a healthy treat.”
Elemental Truffles’ signature truffles are likewise infused with turmeric and other “Ayurvedic super foods” like beet root, lavender and cardamom, thereby meeting at what Vasa calls the intersection where “cacao meets yoga.” They have been created in association with India’s ancient Ayurveda healing system, according to Vasa, “a food science that reveals the secrets of how to balance the five elements--earth, water, fire, air and ether--in our bodies. The focus is on what we eat in achieving harmony and balancing these elements.”
Hence, everyone on the Elemental Truffles team meditates, with the chocolate additionally infused with “love and Vedic chants” in the tradition inspired by Indian spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Core team members also put in at least five hours a week in activities that “give back to the community.”
Also introduced at NY NOW were smaller one-ounce “Pantry Edition” chocolate bar sizes (half of the regular-sized two-ounce bars) of new flavors Maple Toffee Crunch with Moringa Infusion, Cinnamon Orange with Clove Infusion and Ecuadorian Dark with Turmeric Infusion.