Royce’ Chocolate - Nama Chocolate Review - Vancouver

It goes without saying that maccha/green tea flavoured desserts are always popular among Vancouver taste buds. Recently, Royce’ Chocolate from Japan has expanded to Canada with their first location in Vancouver proper at Oakridge Centre. Do the premium-priced goods here warrant a visit to their kiosk or can you get a similar taste elsewhere for cheaper? Read on to find out.

Chocolate:

Being a regular seeker of green tea desserts, I chose to buy the Nama Chocolate - Maccha ($23). With the chocolate, I was given an insulated bag and an ice pack to keep it cool. I wasn’t given any instructions by the staff but my understanding was these chocolates are meant to be kept in a cool environment like a fridge.

Inside the box was a grid of 20 pieces of ganache-looking chocolate accompanied by a little spatula-spoon for scooping the chocolate. According to the Royce website, these were White “Nama Chocolate” with the aroma and bitterness of green tea made by blending in powdered premium green tea leaves and sprinkling on green tea-flavoured chocolate powder. As a matcha lover, I was already screaming in my head, “Yes!”. 

Taste-wise, I thought these were very good. As advertised, they indeed melted in my mouth and had a strong taste of green tea throughout the process. These apparently contain liquor but I could only taste a hint if any. At $23, I expect a level of class and I believe that was achieved in the product here. There aren’t many suppliers of chocolate of this level (CocoaNymph used to sell something similar, but they’ve since moved on to other projects according to Facebook). 

One thing I didn’t enjoy at the Oakridge Royce store was the enthusiasm of the staff. I was never greeted by a staff member during my visit. There was nothing personal during my experience but when I was ready to make a purchase a staff member was suddenly very eager to help me out. If there’s anything I could improve on my first Royce’ experience, it would be the enthusiasm of the staff, especially given this class of confections.

Features:

Royce’ Chocolate is a kiosk located in front of Murale and close to the Gap. There wasn’t anything too stand-outy from my experience at the kiosk though I do commend them for keeping everything tidy, clean, and white.

Final Thoughts:

One-liner: A very high quality chocolate that's not matched by the casual customer service
Highlight: Nama Chocolate - Maccha
Would I go back? No.