Legendary French chocolatier Debauve & Gallais has arrived in town, opening its first chocolate counter in the China World Shopping Mall.

For over 200 years Debauve & Gallais have stuck to the principle of making chocolate with very low sugar content, relying instead on high percentages of the finest quality cocoa to set them apart from the competition and no dyes, preservatives or other additives are permitted.

Debauve & Gallais's Beijing’s counter carries more than 30 different types of chocolate. The clean blue and white packaging for Tamatave Chocolat De Madagascar tells you that this chocolate bar is a minimum 65% cocoa from the island in the Indian Ocean. The other ingredients are cane sugar, cocoa butter, and vanilla pod. The price ranges from 135RMB to 150RMB/100gram, depending on the percentage of the cocoa content.

The care and seriousness that go into production can be tasted in each extraordinary bite. Cocoa beans are roasted and crushed to retain their naturally buttery, but elegantly bittersweet flavour. Almonds and hazelnuts are caramelized and crushed to crunchy perfection. Ganaches are smooth and velvety, and may be flavored with coffee, raspberry, orange blossom honey, blackcurrant, jasmine, earl grey tea, and other exquisite flavors.

Incroyables--bonbons with bitter ganache at the center, and completely surrounded by a sweet nougatine, cost 420RMB/100gram, but these chocolates come with an interesting history as well.

Sulpice Debauve was the royal family chemist before setting up his chocolate shop. The story goes that one day when Monsieur Debauve visited Queen Marie Antoinette with a new medicinal concoction, she complained that her medicines tasted too bitter. The enterprising chemist came up with the idea of putting the medicine in solid chocolate in order to make the bitter medicine go down a bit easier. Her Majesty was so pleased with the range of chocolate “coins” developed for her, that Monsieur Debauve was commissioned to create an entire collection called Pistole de Marie Antoinette.

Debauve opened his first chocolate shop in Paris in 1800, and decorated the front with a quote from Horace: “Utile Dulci,” the useful with the sweet, a reference to the mix of health benefits of cocoa and the pleasure of enjoying chocolate, and now, two hundred years on they have thankfully made their way to Beijing.

Debauve & Gallais, EB103, China World Shopping Mall, 1 Jian Guo Men Wai Avenue, Chaoyang District (tel 5869 1806)