Morning tea at Koko Black – Claremont

Koko Black sent me a voucher to try out the Spring Spoil for Two, so I invited Suz along for some free food. I tried to make sure that the free element did not influence the opinions expressed here. I’ve already reviewed Koko Black recently, so I’ll save the general comments and cut to the food.

The spring spoil at Koko Black seemed to have a tropical fruit theme: “Coconut and lime cake, passionfruit jelly, chocolate mousse, mango sorbet and two chocolates — passionfruit and caramelised coconut”. We ordered the spring spoil “to share” which is the spring spoil with two hot or iced chocolates. We opted for iced chocolates.

The iced chocolates were generously sized, had a sweet flavour and creamy fullness to them. We had chocolate icecream in the drink due to a temporary midweek shortage of flavours, the girl serving us offered the choice of vanilla icecream if we wanted to wait 15 minutes. However, since she had already poured the drinks with chocolate icecream in them, we were accepted them as is.

Unfortunately after I had ingested a third of the drink, I was starting to feel that it was excessively creamy, however I dislike highly creamy things in general. There is definitely something unusual about Koko Black chocolate that also comes through in the iced chocolates and all other Koko Black chocolate products I have tasted – they do not taste strongly of chocolate, which is somewhat puzzling.

Onto the spring spoil itself! The mango sorbet had impact; strong tart, sweet and fruity flavour, providing a powerful counterbalance to the creamy hot chocolate and chocolate mousse. The chocolate mousse was smooth (the same as the winter spoil) and I enjoyed the crushed salted caramel, I would love to eat the salted caramel as a standalone snack.

The passionfruit jelly looked like a large jube lolly with its sugar-encrusted appearance, however its texture revealed that it was definitely a jelly. It yielded satisfyingly to my teeth, slid easily into my mouth and emanated a strong, tart, passionfruit flavour before it melted away. I loved this, the jelly was my favourite part of the spring spoil.

The two chocolates were passionfruit and caramelised coconut. They were forgettable, however I did recall that I enjoyed them more than the winter spoil chocolates. Lastly, I’ll mention the coconut and lime cake, which was moist and floury rather than light and fluffy. There was not a lot of flavour to it and I feel it did not flow well with the rest of the plate.

The service was quite good; we had sporadic water refills and one staff member in particular was especially welcoming. After our meal, we sat around chatting and received a taster of chocolate orange sandpipers which both Suz and I enjoyed. I’m not sure if receiving free samples is usual for Koko Black, but for general shoppers, there are free samples available behind the counter – you just need to be brave enough to ask for them ;)

Overall, Koko black’s chocolate continues to mystify me in terms of (lack of) flavour, however the fruit flavours on offer in the spring spoil were very tart and intense, which I enjoyed.

See also: Afternoon tea at Koko Black – Claremont