The first chocolate I decided to try at La Maison du Chocolat, the plain truffle, immediately struck me because it simply melted in my mouth. They really get the essence of chocolate and have it down right smack to the core. This is what chocolate was meant to be, as delicate and smooth, as beautiful and immediate in all senses of taste, smell, feel and sight. La Maison du Chocolat’s chocolates have a presence that is inherent in its high mark of quality and elegance, but there is also a sense of lingering nostalgia that stays with you because the experience stays with you. Each piece of chocolate that dissolves in your mouth follows a cycle. There is a nose and a finish, or aftertaste, to each piece. The Andalousie is the most representative of the phases of the La Maison du Chocolat experience: at first you taste the beautifully flowing essence of lemon, which is then followed by the smoothness of the chocolate, but a faint hint of the lemon comes back at the finish and leaves a slight lingering aftertaste to remind you of what it was all about. The lemon zest that is infused in the ganache is so light and fresh, you can visualize the lemon-cream color in your head as you are eating the piece of chocolate, which demonstrates the magic of sensory relations when you open your eyes, the ganache is a deep-brown chocolate color, but the taste is so powerful that it can evoke the bright yellow your taste buds are shouting about.