White Chocolate with Matcha

White Chocolate with Matcha by Chocolat Bonnat, creamy and tart

White Chocolate with Matcha by Chocolat Bonnat is a light bar made of cocoa butter, milk, and sugar, blended with ground Japanese green tea. The tea colors it green and balances the sweetness with a grassy, slightly tart edge.

White Chocolate with Matcha is the green 100-gram bar from Chocolat Bonnat in Voiron, Isère, labeled as Chocolat Blanc au Matcha. Its color comes solely from the tea, which is added as a fine powder to the warm cocoa butter.

Creamy melt, grassy notes

The first moment belongs to the cocoa butter, soft and cool, and only afterwards does the tea make itself known.

It arrives grassy and clear, with that gentle tartness known from a bowl of green tea, and keeps the sweetness in check. Because the powder is very fine, the melt remains smooth, without any grains noticeable on the tongue.

For those who usually find light chocolate bars too sweet, this is the perfect counter-test, as the tea significantly pulls back the sugar. A slightly salty, umami-like note remains at the end, the kind only good matcha provides.

Matcha, shade-grown and stone-ground

For matcha, tea bushes are shaded for a few weeks before harvest, which makes the leaves dark green and mild.

The shade slows growth, causing the plant to produce more chlorophyll and more of the amino acids that provide its round, almost savory flavor. Afterward, the leaves are steamed, dried, and ground in stone mills into a powder finer than flour.

Unlike leaf tea, matcha is not infused and then discarded; it is consumed entirely, which is exactly why it can be stirred into a chocolate bar.

In Japan, the powder is whisked into hot water with a bamboo whisk, creating a thin or thick infusion depending on the amount of water used. The same powder is used for the chocolate, only here it meets cocoa butter instead of water.

Why a light bar is the right vessel

White chocolate consists of cocoa butter without the dark components of the bean, meaning it lacks any inherent flavor that could overpower the tea.

The sugar cushions the tartness, the milk powder provides richness, and in between, the green tea has plenty of room for both its color and its aroma. In a dark bar, little of either would remain.

Chocolat Bonnat incorporates the tea into the still-liquid mixture and lets it set quickly so the green does not shift into a brownish hue.

Stored cool and dark, the green remains

Light and heat cost the tea its color first, and its aroma shortly thereafter.

Therefore, store the bar in its closed wrapper in a dark place and consume it within a reasonable time, rather than saving it for a special occasion. It shows its clear side alongside a bowl of sencha or fresh berries; grated over a light dessert, it adds both color and tartness.

Without tea, relying entirely on milk and cocoa butter, the Ivoire sits alongside it, and things become creamy and dark with the Chocolat au Lait. The entire range can be found in the Chocolat Bonnat collection.