Once, the most unusual thing you might find inside a chocolate was a gooey maraschino cherry.

Now a bite might yield tea, tangerine or hibiscus.

How about a rose or violet truffle? These are available from Philippe Bouvier Chocolates, based in Rennes, France. If flowers don't appeal, the company also offers fennel, pepper and Darjeeling tea. Most are topped with a clue to their contents -- hibiscus or tea leaves, for example.

These confections were on display at the weekend Chocolate Show in New York. Featuring more than 50 top chocolatiers and demonstrations by pastry chefs, the event attracts as many as 20,000 chocolate fanatics during its three-day run.

"We have more unusual flavors this year," said Stephanie Teuwen, a spokeswoman for the show. "The people who are experimenting with these flavors are small artisanal chocolate makers who want to do something beyond caramel and nuts. They want to so something more creative."

The clientele for these exotic chocolates are high-end buyers who follow favored candymakers the way others follow basketball hero Michael Jordan's sports career.

At Jacques Torres Chocolates, the New York company owned by the former pastry chef at the restaurant Le Cirque 2000, the big seller is Wicked Hot Chocolate.

For those who don't like it hot, he suggested putting the beverage in the refrigerator, where it thickens into a pudding. In the freezer, it becomes a nice sorbet, he said.

There's also Sweet Bliss, a New York-based company started by Ralph Lauren's former personal chef, Ilene Shane. Shane's buttercrunch and chocolate-covered potato sticks were so beloved by the Lauren household that the designer himself urged her to start marketing her creations.

And he is right. For the specialty food makers, chocolate is a labor of love.

(Agencies)