Bliss Out

So you know that sense of euphoria you get from eating really good dark chocolate?

Sarah Engelhart, the chocolatier behind Venice-based The Sweetness of Being, is upping your chocolate buzz ante.

First off, you can feel great about the quality of ingredients you’re consuming. The base of her handmade chocolate disks is organic, fair-trade, stone-ground cacao that’s sweetened naturally with raw, organic honey from a local solar-powered honey farm.

Engelhart raises the feel-good bar even further with the addition of mucuna pruriens, a tropical legume that naturally contains L-dopa. This amino acid is a precursor to the neurotransmitter dopamine—the same chemical that imparts soaring feelings of pleasure (like when you’re falling in love or listening to your favorite music).

Wait for An experience of the heart.

The flavors in The Sweetness of Being’s lineup will also make you feel pretty ecstatic. Engelhart has created unique, superfood-driven taste combinations like rose-goji, spicy pepita and maca-quinoa crisp. There’s also a bar loaded with 11 tonic herbs from organic herbal emporium Sun Potion. The blend of anandamide (“bliss”) herbs—including Ayurvedic powerhouses such as turmeric and ashwaghanda—is meant to help support whole-body wellbeing.

Each bar is imprinted with ornate graphics that reflect the ancient origins of cacao in history and folklore, such as the Aztec sunstone, a symbol of human transformation. This is in keeping with Engelhart’s motivation to offer people “an experience of the heart” while consuming her chocolate, she says.

The Sweetness of Being chocolates ($4.50 each; $17 for box of five) can be ordered online or found at Café Gratitude, Erewhon and other select retailers.

Consume at your own risk: you may fall in love.

The Sweetness of Being
thesweetnessofbeing.com