For most people, cracking into a piece of chocolate and tasting its sweet flavour is the best way to enjoy the crowd-pleasing confectionery.
But not so for Kaipara chocolatier Tatiana White, who hand paints and makes delicious award-winning chocolates for Dekadenz.
“Funnily enough, I’m a savoury person,” she says with a laugh, in her thick Russia accent.
“For me, it’s more enjoyable to see how people enjoy eating the chocolates and their surprise with the flavours … It’s a totally different experience of eating chocolate.
“After they eat one they want it more and more.”
READ MORE:
* The Kiwis changing the way we eat chocolate
* A chip off the racism block: How Whittaker’s reo Māori wrapper reveals Aotearoa’s true colours
* A Brit samples the quintessential Kiwi ice creams you can get at the dairy
Chocolate-making combines White’s decades of experience as a chef with her artistic abilities –demonstrated in painting, sculptures and creative cakes when she has time.
Creating new flavours and colour combinations is a key part of her job, leading to unique flavours like chilli and mint and a tangy pineapple salsa.
Hand making the chocolates is White’s dream job, made possible with investment from her friends, couple Paul Jeffries and Andrea Prachal.
Denise Piper/Stuff
Tatiana White says inventing and making Dekadenz chocolates is her dream job.
Denise Piper/Stuff
Tatiana White barely stops moving as she works her chocolate, saying precision and patience are important skills.
But it has been a long journey since White first arrived in New Zealand 20 years ago, then known as Tatiana Byvaltseva.
With her daughter in tow, the solo mother had just $200, scarcely any English and a hope she could earn some money as a chef.
“I met a man from New Zealand online,” White explains.
“[I came] because of my daughter – I thought we’d find a better life for her and maybe a good father. Eventually we did, but it took some time.”
Moving from the Russian city of Izhevsk, White said no one in her family across Russia and Ukraine knew about New Zealand, with the only information available in a library.
It took three days to travel here and, when she arrived, White realised her few classes of English lessons were of very little help.
“It was like I’d never heard the language – it was such a shock.”
Denise Piper/Stuff
Tatiana White and Paul Jeffries met in the seaside village of Pahi and decided the Kaipara location was as good as any to start a decadent handmade chocolate business.
Unfortunately, the relationship with the Kiwi man did not work out and White found herself staring down the barrel of deportation.
But she got to work as both a cleaner and a chef, and credits the many helpful people in New Zealand who ensured she could stay, including immigration advisor Rob White.
Romance later bloomed and the two were together for 13 years, moving to the tiny seaside community of Pahi on the Kaipara Harbour.
It was there White became friends with Jeffries and Prachal, and she demonstrated her talents by making them chocolates and cakes as gifts.
After seeing his friend running around cleaning and cooking to make ends meet, Jeffries asked her what she really wanted to do with her life.
She told him she wanted to make chocolates, having taken a chocolate making class in Auckland a few years prior.
Dekadenz was born, with Jeffries and Prachal building a small factory on their Pahi property, and White making the chocolates.
Jeffries says the business is all about empowering White’s talent.
“I have no interest in making chocolate … If you tell me to melt chocolate I’m looking at egg fu young on the floor.”
Quite happy to simply sample the products for quality, Jeffries has left White to invent each creation.
Denise Piper/Stuff
Builder Paul Jeffries says he is not much of a chocolateir, but he is quite happy to taste test the product – all in the name of quality control.
But he admits it has not been plain sailing for the chocolate makers in its five years of operation.
With each chocolate hand made, it is extraordinarily time-consuming, he says.
The high-quality chocolate is also more heat sensitive than mass-produced items and expires after just four months, limiting where and how the chocolates can be sold.
Up until now, Dekadenz chocolates have mostly sold for corporate gift-giving, usually at Christmastime.
But the company has managed to get national recognition with success in the 2022 New Zealand Chocolate Awards.
Denise Piper/Stuff
Tatiana White hand makes all of Dekadenz chocolates, including hand painting the moulds then carefully filling them with a chocolate layer.
Entering the biennial awards for the first time, Dekadenz picked up four gold and two bronze medals, plus won a coveted category win in Christmas novelty chocolates – for White’s Christmas mince pie-inspired treat.
The chocolates are available in local stores and the company is set to launch a new website which will take online orders.
White has also been enjoying taking classes, where small groups of children or adults are inspired to become the next artisan chocolate makers.
“I love to see people actually in the procedure and how their eyes are sparkling, and how they actually like to make and produce something they probably never thought they could,” she says.
Jeffries says everyone leaves the classes with big grins, as well as a big goodie bag of chocolates they have made.
More chocolate classes are planned for Valentine’s Day and Easter, while White is also experimenting with scents for her favourite flavours.
She looks forward to spreading her chocolatey joy, one handmade crackling chocolate bonbon at a time.
