Sneaking chocolate Santas off the family Christmas tree in the middle of the night was just the beginning of Josefin Zernell’s obsession.

She was just three years old, and crept quietly downstairs, carefully hiding the evidence of foil wrappers.

Growing up in Sweden also meant meant long cold winters, white Christmases and many mugs of hot chocolate.

These days there’s no hiding her love for chocolate. An experienced chocolatier, Josefin and her Australian-born partner Kiril are the creators of specialty hot chocolate brand ‘Mörk – Cacao Artisans of Melbourne’.

Combining pure ingredients like cacao liquor, cocoa powder and coconut blossom sugar, Mörk Chocolate offers a rich, natural and gluten-free experience.

Josefin and Kiril are now taking that experience to the streets, opening a concept store in North Melbourne, dedicated to the art of liquid chocolate.

“Our new store is being built as we speak,” says Josefin.

“The building is a 1950s bakery warehouse in North Melbourne, which we are converting into a concept store with a chocolate workshop out the back.”

The menu consists of hot and cold chocolate beverages and ‘a few surprises’.

“We hope to take chocolate drinking in Melbourne to a new level and to invite visitors to find out more about where chocolate is sourced from and how it is made,” says Josefin.

Josefin and Kiril met in Sweden, but fell in love with the café culture of Melbourne when they moved to Australia.

“We were astonished by the amazing café culture we saw here,” she recalls.

“We immediately felt that this magical place of coffee and incredibly creative food was home for us and decided to stay.”

Mörk is the Swedish word for ‘dark’ and encapsulates the nature of the product – drinking chocolate that showcases the origin flavours of pure cacao.

“Sugar always takes the backseat in our chocolate blends,” says Josefin.

“Good chocolate, although unsweetened, should have well balanced natural sweetness and bitterness, a pleasant texture and length in flavour.”

“It was important to us that it was a pure product, and the fewer the ingredients, the less there is to hide behind. So each ingredient really has to shine on its own.”

Perfecting their blends took the pair approximately four months of trials before launching Mörk Chocolate in 2012.

Starting with micro batches of drinking chocolate for just a handful of cafes, curiosity about Mörk quickly spread. The brand is now available from more than 100 retailers nationwide as well as Mörk’s own online store.

The products include Junior Dark, a 50% cacao blend with a toffee-like sweetness from coconut sugar; Dark Milk and River Salt, a smooth and creamy chocolate with dark caramel notes and 65% cacao; Original Dark, 70% with notes of stone fruit, almonds and ripe berries; and Even Darker, 85% pure chocolate with minimal sweetness, giving room for dark notes of raisins, earthy spices and sweet almonds.

www.morkchocolate.com.au