If you have a sweet tooth, (and who doesn’t), a trip to the Big Island Candies factory and store in the bayside town of Hilo is an absolute must. This one-of-a-kind sweets factory offers will offer you a completely sensual experience of sight, smell and taste.
No wonder that buses of tourists visit the store everyday and emerge with arms loaded with boxes of chocolate to take home as gifts.
When You First Step into Big Island Candies...
...your guide greets you with samples of freshly brewed Kona coffee from Big Island’s West coast, chocolate brownie or chocolate crunch ice cream (made locally exclusively for the factory), or the gourmet hand-dipped yummies.
Just imagine...
The sweet aroma and the free samples of truffles, chocolate-dipped cookies, and scrumptious brownies, will make you think you have died and gone to chocolate heaven.
Here, through large viewing windows, you can watch the workers turn chocolate-making into a spectator sport. You can smell the warm aroma of the churning pure butter... Cookies of shortbread and macadamia nuts are hand-dipped into large vats of white chocolate, peanut butter, dark chocolate, then individually wrapped and boxed.
Then, you go to the Big Island Candies gift shop, where you become like a kid in the candy store ;) You'll want to purchase boxes of brownies, chocolate confections, nuts and other irresistible treats to take home as gifts - truly Hawaiian delectable souvenirs, hmmm... your friends will love you for these!
Most of the sweets are packaged in lovely gold boxes, but Big Island Candies recently introduced exotic truffles - mocha, dark chocolate, coconut, yuzu and hibiscus truffles - packaged in smoky black boxes, these are truly a fascinating gift!
If you are stumped for choice, choose a gift basket.
It includes everything from boxes of chocolate to the world-famous Kona coffee, chocolate covered Kona beans, nuts and biscotti.
You can choose mochi crunch, fortune cookies, animal crackers, and other morsels, all dipped in chocolate, or settle for the local favorites, Hawaiian Da Kines - deliciously made from Iso peanuts, puffed rice, dried plums, and even cuttle fish.
So delicious!
Yes, you can even have sugar-free chocolate. Also, wedding and party favors, which can be a perfect little addition if you plan a Big Island Hawaii wedding.
Big Island Candies are...
...free of any preservatives and the chocolate is made after a secret gourmet recipe from the finest ingredients. There are no cheap substitutes and every ingredient is found right on the island. Macadamia nuts, Kona coffee, cane sugar, eggs and butter are trucked in from local farms.
The company, which has only 1 retail outlet in all the Hawaiian Islands, was started in 1977 to make chocolate-covered macadamia nuts using home-grown nuts.
Ever since, its range has evolved to include molded Hanafuda card chocolates (inspired from a popular Japanese card game), chocolate Kona coffee beans, macadamia nut & coffee bean shortbread cookies dipped in white chocolate, macadamia nut brittle...
Gift boxes are carted inter-island, shipped all over the country and worldwide in staggering quantities.
The owner, Alan Ikawa, says he succeeded because his store appealed to the Hawaiian sense of honoring one's friends and family, where it is definitely in keeping with local custom to bring an omiyage (the Japanese word for gift) when visiting loved ones.
A gift from Big Island Candies is definitely a very special omiyage! Where else can you buy gourmet chocolate-dipped cuttle-fish??
