About Us

Clare Shepherd - Chocolatier

The Cacao Tree was established by Clare Shepherd to cater for the ever increasing demand for chocolate made to the highest standards both in terms of ingredients and taste. It was also the result of years of loving research into the art of a chocolatier which, combined with her unique creativity, resulted in the opening of the first shop which is based near Lydney.

Clare’s passion for what she does is apparent in every chocolate made for The Cacao Tree customers, who have been flocking through the doors since the venture started earlier in 2006. Clare’s ethos is to produce chocolate taste perfection and maintain the highest quality for all of her gorgeous chocolate.

As The Cacao Tree product line develops, her mission is to bring these delicious, innovative delights into more retail outlets, as well as develop the website for online orders and a new wedding favour range.

‘Our aim is not to become another ‘fancy’ chocolate producer, rather to provide the public with a more primitive, rustic almost earthy style of chopped chocolate so many dream of. There is no pretence, no airs and graces with our chocolate, just inspirational, mouth-watering experiences! We use a high quality Belgian chocolate, Fairtrade and Organic products and add delicious top quality inclusions and essential oils, flavours and spices. For us, it’s all about taste and texture, get those right and we’ve got a successful chocolate.

We provide tasting samples at our shop, so that our customers can experience the flavours of our chocolate before they buy. Our customers find this fascinating and very tempting and we enjoy the responses and feedback we receive.

Satisfied customers are not hard to find. An ardent Cacao Tree fan, Jane Levy from Cardiff, attempts to describe her experience:

It must be said that Clare’s chocolate seems to have a drop of magic in it that I have never tasted before. I sometimes wonder if it’s more about the way the chocolate is put together rather than the sum of the ingredients. She has an extraordinary range of unusual flavours, but I have now tried every single chocolate just to make sure that they are all quite as good as each other and although I am partial to the Almond Oggle, all the rest come a very close second!           

This is our shop at Taurus Crafts - Come and visit us!