Fazer Geisha
We’ve talked about Finland’s Fazer (pronounced Fat-ser) in the past, but back in November I had the chance to see a presentation by their Managing Director Pekka Rantala at a confectionery conference. Fazer are huge in Finland and are becoming much better known around the world. Recently, they’ve picked up a license to manufacture ‘Angry Birds’ confectionery, which according to Mr Rantala is flying off the shelves. Metaphorically speaking.
There are no birds (angry or otherwise) in Fazer Geisha though. Despite the bright pink packaging and slightly odd choice of name, this is a simple milk chocolate bar with a hazelnut filling.
The ingredients tell me that the filling makes up 40% of the weight, but there doesn’t seem to be a cocoa solids percentage listed unfortunately. What I can tell you is that is is pretty good quality for what is essentially a confectionery bar. It’s not particularly rich, but it’s creamy without being too sweet. I quite enjoyed it in fact.
The filling is essentially a praline, but being mass produced there are some vegetable fats in there. It has a nice texture, being smooth with a little bit of a crunch, but it is a touch too sweet for my tastes. Not so much that I didn’t enjoy a square or two at a time, but any more than that would have been quite hard going.
This is not designed to be a high end fine chocolate bar though, and ultimately I quite enjoyed it for what it is. At £2.50 for a 100g bar, it’s decent value and makes a nice change from your regular supermarket confectionery. I’m still not convinced by the packaging though!
Information
- Buy it online from:
- Contains milk chocolate.
- Filed under fazer, finland, hazelnut.
I never knew this existed as a bar. I’ve only seen the box of individually wrapped chocolates (same format as the vodka chocolates).
Ah yes – I should have said they do individual chocolates as well, thanks Ana. I wonder if that means they do a bar version of the vodka chocolates….
One of the best chocolates that I have ever eaten. the wrapper reminds me of willy wonker when I was a child for some reason, it is so inviting.
From the Finnish Wikipedia: “Production of Geisha chocolate started in 1962. The chocolate was developed by Peter Fazer by combining milk chocolate with the filling of a popular confectionery product. The name Geisha is based on the japonais filling in question.”
Hence the name! Also, it probably sounded fancy and exotic at the time…