Hot Chocolate Festival Vancouver 2019: East Van Roasters Review Part 2

The last participating cafe I visited for this year’s Hot Chocolate Festival 2019 was back East Van Roasters. Not only do I love their artisan chocolate and coffee, but also I love to support them because of their work in helping marginalized women in the Downtown Eastside.

Each year, partial proceeds of the Hot Chocolate Festival go to a few charitable organizations all of which seek to improve the lives of women and families in Vancouver.

One of the organizations is the Downtown Eastside Women’s Job Training Program of the PHS Community Services Society as run by East Van Roasters. East Van Roasters was designed to provide training and employment to the women residents of the Rainier Hotel. Until they lost their funding in 2013, the Rainer operated a small but radical new approach to treating addiction for marginalized women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

East Van Roasters continues to employ women from the Rainier and helps them get back into the workforce, gain confidence, build their skill sets, and foster a positive environment for them to work.

For the first half of the Hot Chocolate Festival, East Van Roasters offered the “Umami Experience.” Priced at $7.50, the hot chocolate featured a Tamari caramel drinking chocolate made with 70% dark single-origin chocolate. It is paired with Wasabi Chocolate Almonds.

I thought the drink encompassed umami, with the saltiness being quite prominent. The sweetness balanced it out along with some bitterness. While the sourness evaded me a bit, the caramel flavours really came through. Check out my previous post here.

For the second half of the Hot Chocolate Festival, East Van Roasters offered a vegan hot chocolate called “Yu-Zu..What?” This was a sweet-tart, citrus Yuzu-infused Tanzania white drinking chocolate, with coconut milk and citrus zest. The hot chocolate was accompanied by a house-made Jasmine Cookie.

I normally do not like white chocolate but was interested in trying the drink because of the yuzu flavours. I was pleasantly surprised how good this was. It was not overly rich, very smooth and silky and had subtle citrus flavours.