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BRAND INSPIRATION
Drinking chocolate in a café is a tradition,
And we want more people to experience it
The wonderful fun of "Bean-to-Bar"!
In 2012, two young people borrowed the concept of specialty coffee and created Mörk Chocolate, a boutique chocolate brand in Melbourne. They are committed to producing the best chocolate and want to bring more delicious and creative chocolate drinks to people.
By forging a connection with the specialty coffee culture and starting with independent cafes, Mörk has not only become a popular option on melbourne's menus of many boutique cafes, net red dessert shops and high-end restaurants, but also grown into one of the best chocolate coffee brands in many local media and young people.
Introduce the world to real hot chocolate,
one sip at a time!
ˇ
Make chocolate with the attitude of making specialty coffee
Josefin Zernell, from Sweden, has a soft spot for chocolate and has spent most of her life researching the making of delicious chocolate. Years ago, when she moved to Melbourne, a coffee mecca with her best partner, Kiril Shaginov, she was captivated by the region's strong specialty coffee culture.
However, after experiencing many well-known cafes, they were surprised to find that they could not find delicious chocolates that matched their fame on the café's menu. This market gap made them quickly aware of the business opportunities involved — to have their chocolates appear on the café menu.
This young brand has been very different from the very beginning. In her early years, when Josefin was still working as a chocolate apprentice in Sweden, she found that there were many interesting and similarities between the chocolate and coffee industries, such as flavor language and tasting system.
The concept of "From Bean to Bar", similar to specialty coffee, from raw beans to chocolate, also emphasizes the characteristics of origin and terroir, and the chocolate produced in this way is more exquisite in addition to raw materials, but also has a more distinctive taste and characteristics.
Her partner Kiril's professional specialty coffee background broadened Josefin's entrepreneurial thinking and promoted her confidence in making chocolate with the attitude of making specialty coffee. The duo named the chocolate brand Mörk Chocolate, which means "dark" in Swedish, just like dark chocolate with a mysterious and distant atmosphere, but also implies the meaning of good chocolate ingredients and high quality.
Josefin and Kiril focus on the sustainability of sourcing and also enjoy a personalized, stylized creative process, as if "one foot in the world of fine chocolate and one foot in the world of specialty coffee".
Mörk's chocolates don't look so fancy, but they taste absolutely out of the ordinary. From quality positioning to product design, the team has always adhered to a simple and natural production principle: while highlighting the original flavor of the ingredients, it also carefully adjusts the proportion of the recipe and even the production method in order to achieve the ideal flavor expression effect.
Mörk's chocolate can be divided into 4 kinds by concentration, from 50% Concentration Honor, 65% Dark Milk & Salt, 70% Origin Dark, and then to the highest concentration of 85% Even Darker, which can meet the tastes of different groups of people. Among them, 70% perfect proportion of hot chocolate is the most popular, known as "the best ratio of sweet and bitter cocoa".
This perfect combination of "bitter and sweet" chocolate, silky and rich, quickly became popular with many local cafes, bakeries and high-end restaurants. Mörk chocolate can be seen in many famous internet celebrity stores, such as Brother Baba Budan and Lune Croissanterie.
There are no shortcuts in the process of cooperation. From time to time, the Mörk team communicates with partner cafes to determine the best way to brew chocolate and get their minds on chocolate, and sometimes they customize the service to the café's menu to create an exclusive drink suitable for the café.
Chocolate flavor paradise
In 2015, the duo opened their own chocolate experience shop, Mörk Chocolate Brew House. Because of its outstanding product and service experience, it has been repeatedly named the best and hottest chocolate café by the local media.
Mörk Chocolate Brew House
The space was formerly a 50s vintage bakery warehouse, which was transformed by designers into its current fresh and soft appearance. From the moment you walk into the store, you can instantly feel the warmth and cocoa aroma that comes to you, as well as the warmth and comfort emanating from the space.
From the layout of the space to the design of the menu, the Mörk team put all their ideas and ideas about chocolate into the concept store. It's a flavor paradise for chocolate fans and a whimsical chocolate world.
In this concept store, Mörk Chocolate creates a holistic sensory experience for people. Here you have the opportunity to learn about the process of making beverages from cocoa beans to chocolate, and you can also taste different flavors of freshly made chocolate. Mörk intends to spark interest in chocolate's origins, culture and history, as well as associations with flavors.
If you look closely, you can also find many details, such as the use of special coconut sugar in the store, which reflects the Mörk team's great attention to "unrefined" and low-glycemic index (Low-GI). At the same time, in order to take care of the tastes of children, exclusive chocolate drinks developed for children can be found on the menu.
Play with chocolate creative combinations
All of the Mörk team's ideas revolve around chocolate, and the constant iteration of new products attracts many chocolate fans. From classic chocolate milk, campfire chocolate, chocolate brownies to cocoa toy, take the lead in exploring a unique world of taste buds.
Bean to Bar chocolate drinks are rich in malleability, which is what Josefin and Kiril value. Although chocolate itself has different flavors and personalities due to different production areas, it can also be matched with a variety of ideas and ways to play.
(1) Campfire hot chocolate
One of the most popular products in the store is "Bonfire Chocolate". The upside-down cup is filled with smoke from roasted beech wood and served with slices of smoked black salt, a homemade marshmallow and a jar of delicious hot chocolate.
The clerk roasts marshmallows with muskets on the spot, and the caramelized marshmallows are dipped in hot chocolate, instantly bringing a full sense of happiness. The baked marshmallows, mixed with the faint woody and chocolate aromas, are a delightful experience, and it's no wonder that many young diners come in long lines to order a drink.
Campfire hot chocolate
(2) Chocolate cocktails
What kind of chemistry does a cocktail meet chocolate? In 2020, the Mörk team broke through the business circle and collaborated with orlando Marzo, a famous Australian bartender, to perfectly combine cocktails and chocolates to launch a creative special called Mörk Chocolate Negroni.
This drink is made from 100% Venezuelan cocoa mixture with Madagascar cocoa husks, soaked in gin for 18 hours, and fused with Cocchi sweet absinthe and St Felix bitter aperitif. This combination is rich and amazing, bringing people different surprises.
In the 9 years since its establishment, the Mörk team has continued to try to combine chocolate with a variety of ingredients, play with creative collocation, and continue to bring diners a variety of taste bud experiences and explosive products, and the popularity on social networks has never diminished.
-Further reading-
Since 2019, Mörk's chocolates have begun to appear in local cafes in the UK, THE US and Japan. While expanding the product line, the team will continue to develop chocolate drinks that are more in line with local tastes and consumption habits.
Josefin and Kiril have always maintained this spirit, working closely with the cocoa origin while also paying great attention to quality and traceability. Through Mörk's platform, they hope to create a delicious chocolate for cafes and home consumers from all over the world to drink every day, so that more people can have the opportunity to experience the fun of "bean to bar".
Text & Design: AOLU
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