Le Whif - As Sweet As Chocolate Without The Calories!

Imagine having the scrumptious taste of chocolates, the stimulating aroma of coffee, and many other little pleasures without having to worry about the calories. Too good to be true? Well, good news for you, its already here for quite a while (hallelujah!). Meet Le Whif, it started out in 2007 as an experiment by David Edwards, a Harvard professor and Thierry Marx, one of France's top chef well known for its avant-garde culinary innovation. After several years of tweaking and perfecting the design, in May 2009 it has become commercially available worldwide.

The first Le Whif comes in three varieties of chocolate: pure, raspberry chocolate, and mint chocolate. As you can see in the picture, this lipstick sized inhaler is meant to be enjoyed by taking a short whiff naturally, then the tiny particles will be picked up by the air stream, entered the mouth and tasted by the tongue. The next Le Whif innovations are the breathable coffee and breathable vitamins. The sites claimed it 'revolutionary'. Hmm, we'll see about that. Being featured in Oprah, New York Times, Cosmo and many other media has helped Le Whif took off rocketfast. While I can imagine the amount of ladies dancing happily singing hallelujah as it definitely write off the popular quotes "a moment on the lip, forever on the hips", I'd say it would take some more time to see if the success sustained.

I personally would like to give it a breathe, before verbalizing my verdict. Here's some thoughts anyway.

Its definitely interesting for me and many who has a sweet tongue. This might just be the answer for us to enjoy chocolates in its entirety without worrying about the scale (and the guilt) after as it delivers all the flavor in less than a calorie! However, being priced at 1.8 Euro (equals to around 22.000 Rupiah) per unit might makes me think twice in using this alternately with real chocolate. First and foremost, the price will most likely one-halved or doubled once it reached Jakarta, and secondly, each inhaler only gives about 4-5 'puffs' as published by Oprah. Also, in my opinion, nothing beats the scrumptious munch on a thick milky chocolate bar and having it lingers on the tongue. You coffee aficionados will most likely in the same page as me. A whiff is much less intense that holding that cup of Starbucks' latte and sipping it hot. Right?

In the inventor's defense: "This is not against chocolate anymore than eating bars of chocolate means I don't eat a chocolate milkshake, this is just a new way of experiencing chocolate, and it's sort of an addendum to how we normally eat chocolate."

Oh well, the neophile in me still very much intrigued though. Now, would you be so kind to bring Le Whif from abroad and once again made me one happy foodie? =D

Expectantly waiting,

Fellexandro Ruby
Food Enthusiast & Photographer

Munch on my tweets @captainruby