ISSN: 0004-7163(print)

A hamper works because it spreads the pleasure out. Instead of one shape to unwrap, there is a selection to move through across the long weekend: pralines to pass around after lunch, a share bag for the children, a boxed assortment kept back for the adults. Each piece is handcrafted in Newbridge, Co. Kildare, where the company has made chocolate since Mary Ann O'Brien began in her kitchen in 1992, and the range reflects that same attention to finish.

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The difference is in the contents. Where an egg is a single large piece of moulded chocolate, an adult hamper is a selection: darker, single-origin pieces, hand-finished pralines, perhaps a share bag to keep back. It rewards slower eating across the long weekend rather than one sitting, which is closer to how most adults actually enjoy chocolate.

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Provenance matters here as much as it does at any other point in the year. A collection that is genuinely hand-finished, using single-origin cocoa and produced by a maker with a long-standing story, carries more weight as a gesture than a generic box picked up because January happened to roll round. Lily O'Brien's traces its own story back to Mary Ann O'Brien's kitchen in Co. Kildare in 1992, and that kind of provenance is worth choosing on purpose rather than settling for whatever happens to be nearest to hand.

ISSN: 0004-7163