About Us

THE ECILA STORY

Ecila Choco Inc. is Canada’s first chocolate maker specializing in using sake in chocolate. Founder of the company, Alice Ngan, has a passion for sake - the Japanese rice wine. She invented new recipes to create and develop sake chocolate in different flavours, after she successfully completed the WSET Level 3 Award in Sake in Toronto (Pass with Merit).

WSET

Not many people realize that sake and chocolate can go together. Actually they have more similarities than you may think. They are both luxurious, delicate, and packed with complex flavours. Both can be associated with romantic or indulgent moments.

Ecila Choco Inc. uses delicate dark chocolate shells, each containing at least 70% cocoa content, to envelop the irresistibly smooth fillings, ranging from pure sake ganache, sake ganache with dried fruit, sake jello, and sake-kasu in various flavours. Sake-kasu is the solid cake left over from the filtration process during sake production. According to the text book, “Understanding sake: Explaining style and quality” published by WSET Wine & Spirit Education Trust, sake-kasu contains undissolved rice, yeast, and 8% alcohol (Chapter 14, page 71). It is highly nutritious. A study done in Kyoto by Japanese scientists, Nobuo Tsutsui, Yoshihiro Yamamoto and Kimikazu Iwami, shows that the lees obtained by sake brewing is jam-packed with protein, carbohydrates, fibre and other nutrients. The results were documented in the scientific report, “Protein-Nutritive Assessment of Sake Lees Obtained by Brewing from Liquefied Rice”, published in the Journal Nutritional Science and Vitaminology Volume 44 (1988) Issue 1 Pages 177-186. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jnsv1973/44/1/44_1_177/_pdf

The remarkable health and beauty benefits of sake and sake-kasu, such as improving blood circulation, moisturizing and whitening the skin, were discovered in Japan hundreds of years ago. In recent decades, Japanese scientists have been conducting scientific research into this field and gathering evidence. One of the outstanding projects was the work of a group of researchers at National Research Institutes of Brewing. They comprehensively investigated the health and beauty effects of sake and sake-kasu; then wrote a summary of their studies. Their paper titled “Beneficial Effects of Sake and Its By-Products” was published in the Journal of the Brewing Society of Japan Volume 110 (2015) Issue 4 Pages 198-206. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jbrewsocjapan/110/4/110_198/_article/-char/en

Ecila Choco Inc. advocates for using local ingredients; hence, we source locally produced sake-kasu and other important ingredients. All of our products are made by hand in Canada.

Ecila’s sake chocolate forms the magical link between creative flavours and health. Each flavour has unique characteristics that one should never miss eating.