Hotel Chocolat Inventing Room subscription review
Monthly
Be the first to test out brand new products with the Hotel Chocolat Inventing Room chocolate subscription – read on for our full review.
Update May 2022: Hotel Chocolat sadly no longer offer the Inventing Room subscription. Take your pick of their Curated Collection subscription instead or try the customisable Build-a-Box subscription. For more, read our round-up of all the best chocolate subscriptions and clubs.
What is the Hotel Chocolat Inventing Room subscription?
This may be the best kept secret in the world of chocolate and we are almost reluctant to share – but the Hotel Chocolat Inventing Room subscription is too good not to shout about.The Inventing Room subscription is a chance to try new Hotel Chocolat creations before they’ve hit the shelves – and then provide your honest feedback. A £25 a month, you'll get a monthly chocolate delivery containing 8 filled chocolates (2 each of four flavours) along with at least four other items. This adds up to a generous, varied stash. Alongside the filled chocolates, our boxes contained a wide variety of new flavours of hot chocolate, biscuits, bars and interesting nibbles. The inventing nature of the box means you’ll never get the same thing twice.
What was in our Inventing Room chocolate box?
Everything is packaged simply in brown paper and labelled 'Pack A-E' with the product title, adding to the fun mysterious experience and work-in-progress style of the box. There's a detailed letter from the CEO explaining everything the box contains and the thought process behind the recipe development. Some creations are entirely new launches, while others are reworked versions of existing chocolates. For example, our box of filled chocolates included ‘Carrot cake v2’, with the same filling as the existing carrot cake truffle, but with a new decoration. We also fell in love with a sample of a peanut bar that we hope will hit shelves soon.
You’re sometimes asked to pick a favourite from a few options, too. Our box included 3 different sachets of white hot chocolate, along with two similar coffee-flavoured macarons. Once you’ve sampled each one, you're invited to submit your feedback online, where you can also watch videos from the development team offering further information behind each item in the box.
Conclusion
As a fascinating insight into the chocolate creation process, this is a fun preview of future ranges, and it's satisfying to see how the recipes change before they hit the shelves.
As the contents are all a surprise (and all a work in progress), you can’t guarantee you'll enjoy everything in the box, but the varied nature means you’re sure to find a few new favourites. The Inventing Room is frequently full of members, but it's worth putting your name on the mailing list for when spots open up.