schoc therapy

Schoc chocolate opened at the end of 2002 but it took me another five years to discover them. However once tasted, it was hard to go back to the everyday, better quality supermarket variety. The flavour choices in other lines are comparatively dull after sea salt or lime and chilli.

The highlight of my recent trip home was a visit to relatives in Greytown. This once sleepy town in the Wairarapa is now a hot bed of high real estate prices and boutiques run by Khandallah housewives (for Australian equivalent think Trude and Prue from Kath and Kim, I swear last summer I overheard two store owners that were their doppelgangers). Just like Victoria’s own Daylesford, Greytown is a small town with an ever growing tourist trade wanting gourmet food, homewards and other accoutrements of status.

Which brings us to Schoc. Run by Murray and partner Roger in a cutesy 1920’s cottage. While there is an espresso bar with Schoc outlet in central Wellington, Greytown is the home of Schoc. This is where the goodies are made and there is marginally more space to display the wares and take your time tasting the tiny chips of the tablet range from little wooden spice boxes. However on this visit the place was swamped by a busload of women who probably thought the flavours were peculiar and couldn’t work out why it cost so much more than a block of Cadbury’s.

Schoc is obviously created by people who love, eat, sleep and breathe chocolate. This is obvious when you read the delivery notes setting a deliberate mailing schedule to avoid their precious cargo sitting in hot postal warehouses over the weekend. It also explains why we can’t buy it in Melbourne. Murray has yet to find an outlet that understands chocolate to his own high exacting standards. (“David Jones!” he scoffed, “they know nothing about chocolate”).




While many connoisseurs will head straight to the extensive truffle range such as Smoked Tea (Lapsang Souchong Tea infused ganache dipped in dark chocolate) or Tequila, Lime & Salt (Mexican Tequila, dried lime & flakey crystal sea salt in a white chocolate hand-painted mould) due to my problems tolerating dairy I head straight to the dark section of the flavoured tablets (ranging from 53-76.5% cocoa mass). If I had more time or the busload of philistines hadn’t been there I would have like to have explored the single bean and country of origin blocks this time.

Instead I picked up a couple of old favourites – lemon and black pepper and limechilli, as well as rose which is fast becoming my latest obsession. I got to have a quick chat to Murray (I was with my aunt who knows everyone in town which was quite handy) and tell him how much I loved his products.



While the Australian dollar is strong it is tempting to place a bulk order to be shipped over when I run out of my current supplies but gluttony (and not fitting my summer clothes as it) is aside, I like the ritual of sampling and buying a select few tablets each time I visit. But if I’ve peaked your appetite you can order directly from Schoc and taste their great chocolate for yourself.