There has been one small bonus to my behaviour over the last year and change of isolation and quarantine; one little glimmer of positivity that shines through the gained weight, mental duress, and occasional crippling wave of loneliness based paranoia. I have learned to look much more locally for the little pleasures in life.
I’m not certain how I got to that point, but I realised that I had tied myself to familiar brands. Big names and big products. If I craved something I wouldn’t picture the object itself, I’d think of the packaging, the labels, those bright colours designed to catch your eye and stick in your memory. My brain was waterlogged with advertisements for big brand stores, and I had become complicit in their advertising campaigns.
Ever since I realised this about myself I have been keeping an eye out for local stores. Keeping myself out from the giants that have steadily eaten up most of the market for themselves. After all, local businesses are the places that have suffered the most during lockdown. I’m not very good at it. Deprogramming yourself from decades of advertising isn’t going to happen overnight, but I did manage to find at least one local place that I felt the urge to tell others about.
The place is called Edan Ash. It’s a small coffee and chocolate shop, directly opposite from the bus stop in the center of Kidwelly. While sitting almost directly in one of the busier places in Kidwelly, I had never given the place a glance before; why should I need to? If I wanted coffee I could simply drive several miles to the nearest chain coffee store and purchase something more equivalent to a cream-based slushie, and if I wanted chocolate I could no doubt go into the local supermarket and purchase the chalky abomination that Cadbury has turned into. I have attempted to keep the references to actual brands neutral in this article but I will unapologetically call out Cadbury for changing their recipe to become the almost-chocolate mockery of their own previous standards.
This time however, I was much more aware of the kind of treasures that you can find concealed away in your local shops. I knew I had to try this Edan Ash place out, and see if I’d managed to find another little local gem. I didn’t go crazy; a bar of something nice for the family back home, some hand-made chocolate truffles, and a drink for myself and a companion that I hadn’t seen in months.
First I must say the hand-made truffles are feasts for the eyes themselves. Speckles, swirls, deep rich colours and vibrant splashes adorn the chocolates there; I’m not ashamed to admit that it brings me back to watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as a child. As if simply seeing the chocolate itself is meant to bring happiness to you.
The hot chocolate my companion ordered was affordable, all of their coffees resting comfortably in the £2.50 range, and avoided the trap of attempting to appeal to the vastest majority by being overly sweet. As someone who does enjoy drinking those aforementioned cream-based slushies I can still appreciate when a good hot chocolate remembers that chocolate itself is a bitter flavour.
Finally the most important part. The taste of the chocolates. I bought a small box of six, a mix of the remaining truffles, having caught them at the end of a shift. We seated ourselves outside and decided to have a chocolate each. An hour later, I could still taste that singular truffle I had purchased. There is a strength in those truffles. The particular one I had chosen was a rich forest gateau flavour; the moment I had bitten down a powerful taste coated my mouth and lingered on my tongue and in my memory. It isn’t a taste that inspires me to shovel more into my mouth, but to linger on it, to enjoy the taste rather than to chase it.
Edan Ash is a small shop. In my brief time there I saw perhaps one person manning the counter, coffee and closing at the end of the day. It is the kind of place that depends on local support, and it is the kind of place that I will be supporting a lot more thanks to my drive to find little pleasures in life in my local area. I can only hope that, if you are passing by that area, or are local yourself, you will pop in and give them a little of your time.
