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For the Love of Sweets
By Tommy Tang, Barcelona
Some of the very best expressions of love come from Europe. Indeed, the seeds of romance - unrequited or otherwise - have long been rooted in European history. But today, those seeds have spread and bloomed all over the world.
"As love’s sweet song is sung all over the world on February 14th, perhaps it’s no surprise that some of the very best confections come from centuries old European craftsmanship that artisans are recreating at Papabubble." -Tommy Tang
As love's sweet song is sung all over the world on February 14th, perhaps it's no surprise that some of the very best confections come from centuries old European craftsmanship that artisans are recreating at Papabubble.
Inside this small candy shop, customers in Barcelona, New York, Tokyo, and Amsterdam (Mexico City at the end of 2008) crowd around the counters, feasting their eyes on a live performance of candy-crafters creating inspirational delicacies.
Made from 200 year old recipes that combine sugar, glucose, water, essential oils, and nature-identical flavours, these sweet sensations of mango, strawberry, passion fruit, lavender, anise seed, lemon ginger, caramel filled apple, and, of course rich chocolate are moulded into three dimensional sculptures of rings, animals, people, etc. which harden like a stone into rock candy.
The art of creating these masterpieces has been sweet for me and Crick King who started Papabubble with me almost five years ago in Barcelona. I was a chef in Sydney (Australia) and Crick studied industrial design but we have tasted the success of what sugar can create for the last 11 years. Working in four different countries only enhances our creativity, opening our eyes to new ideas to satisfy different cultures, tastes and demands.
I have always had serious passion for artisan candy. We created the Papabubble store so we can share this passion with others. We like to entertain. The smells are incredible. We love the intimacy of creating these very beautiful edible sculptures in front of people. We love handing someone a piece of fresh hot apple candy and seeing them smile.
Over the course of the last few years we have learned quite a lot about our customers and their customs too. For instance, the Dutch are very keen to eat as much liquorice candy as possible, whereas the Japanese would not even eat the smallest piece of it. This is incredibly fun for us.
Papabubble can only really be experienced by coming into the store. It's a different kind of retail experience. A lot of our creative energy comes from watching people delight in our creating candy sculptures. We create, we have fun and we treat the public to our world.
