A 50 gram (1.8 ounce) To’ak chocolate bar sells for $260. Each To’ak chocolate bar is packed in a wood box and comes with a 115 page guidebook. By contrast, my chocolate bars do not come with a guidebook. You have to figure out how to eat my chocolate bars all by yourself and without written instructions. To’ak chocolate bars are made from a very rare and genetically pure variety of cocao bean called Nacional. Nacional cocao trees were thought to be extinct. The variety was nearly wiped out in 1917 by an outbreak of witch’s broom disease; however, a few of these trees were recently discovered growing in a remote area of Ecuador. There aren’t many of these trees. Despite the high price, To’ak chocolate bars are selling well. Nearly all the To’ak chocolate bars that will be available this year have already been sold. To order To’ak chocolate bars, click here: $260 Chocolate Bars.
Noka. To’ak chocolate bars sounds like the kind of thing that dot-comers buy when they sell their companies or have IPOs; however, To’ak chocolate bars are far from being the most expensive chocolate bars ever sold. Noka chocolate bars sold for $850 a pound, but Noka went out of business after the financial crisis of 2008. A lot of companies that sold ridiculously expensive luxuries went out of business at that time. They used to sell Noka chocolate at the Neiman Marcus store at Union Square in San Francisco. Back when Neiman Marcus was selling Noka chocolate, I went over there to see the Noka display for myself. While I was there, a young man bought 2 boxes of Noka chocolates. Each box weighed 3 ounces and sold for $130. He paid cash. The guy didn’t look rich. There were holes in his Levis. He looked like he might be a busboy at a coffee shop. I remembered staring at him as he made his purchase. As he left. I wondered what he was going to do with the small bag of chocolates that he put in his backpack and paid $260 for. I wondered if he was going to eat the stuff on a bus going home. Above is a picture of my hand with a $10 Noka chocolate bar in it. (Really! That actually is a picture of a $10 Noka chocolate bar.)
If you prefer boxed chocolates and money is no object, may I recommend Debauve & Gallais’ Le Livre. Le Livre (‘book’ in French) is a collection of 35 individual chocolate pralines and ganaches packed in a box designed to look like an elegant book. It costs $550. If that is too expensive for you, you can order the Petit Livre (small book) for only $330. To order, go to: Debauve & Gallais.
