New Biz Oly: Encore Chocolates and Teas

Introducing you to new locally-owned businesses..

Encore Chocolates and Teas

Dean and Carla Jones ran the popular Four Seasons Bookstore for 15 years. After semi-retiring in 2009, they found the entrepreneurial life calling again, this time to exotic chocolates and the wide world of teas. They opened two months ago.

“We called the store Encore because we are across from The Washington Center,” Dean says. “We love the arts and our location, and we stay open until curtain time on event nights.”

The space—inviting, clean, bright with track lighting and tile flooring—tastefully displays chocolates on one side and teas on the other, with more chocolates in the center and on tables in the windows. Carla showcases 112 loose-leaf and 32 bagged tea varieties in unique, beautiful, large glass jars and smaller ‘sniffer jars’, complete with Encore’s own self-designed labels, arrayed on burnished maple shelves. Soft lights grace the tops of the shelves around the store. The aroma is divine!

Carla says, “Our teas range from black, green, herbals, whites, oolongs, flavors, to organic and non-organic, and teas we bring in by request.”

“This is a customer-directed store. We honor the requests of customers wherever possible, and it’s the same with chocolates,” Dean adds. “We’ll search for something a customer remembers, like a whiskey chocolate or a bleu cheese chocolate! We buy from Seattle, Reno, Toronto, New Jersey and California. Our goal is to carry as many Northwest artisan chocolates as possible, and presently that’s about half of our stock. The Northwest is rich with small chocolate companies. We are dealing with 15 local companies and we hope to make that 30. We love finding small ‘bean-to-bar’ companies.”

Dean continues, “Chocolates are a lot like wines, with flavors differing due to process, point of origin, ingredients, roasting, conching (machine treatment that kneads chocolate mixtures for hour, smoothing the texture and mellowing acidic tones), tempering, and forming. We have discovered some greats, like Two Snooty Chefs, out of Gig Harbor, who originally did rubs and spices and recently started infusing those into a white chocolate called Oohlala, a Spicy Sedona, and a Mocha Mole.”

“Lillie Belle Farms makes a bacon/cheese flavor, a 75% dark Purple Haze, one called Don’t Eat This Chocolate Bar/ Pain is Lasting (extremely hot), and The Wild Thing. Seattle’s Firebird Chocolate sells products that are GMO-free, certified by The Rainforest Alliance to protect the environment. Chocolopolis, also out of Seattle, offers Spicy Aztec, very hot.”

Sampling, amen, was one of the perks of this interview, and the popular Holiday herbal tea helped many delicious little squares of flavored and spicy chocolate descend well, as did the good company of Dean and Carla. The hand-painted creations of Katherine Taylor, from the San Juan Islands, are high-end designer-flavored delights with different original artwork on each. Clear Creek Distillery offers fir-flavored chocolate with pure ganache. Soon to come will be the distillery’s blood orange, ginger caramel and honey-bush Malbec treats. With Valentine’s Day approaching, this store is a must for the inventive shopper seeking wonders in tea and chocolate.

Dean says, “Olympia is the downtown of Thurston County, and it’s becoming more vibrant. Good things are happening here. We feel it’s our downtown, and we love it!”

509 Washington Street SE

Hours 11- 5 Tuesday – Saturday (open later on WA Center Event nights)