Eat your heart out

For a Japanese chocolate-maker, Valentine's Day may be the most wonderful time of the year. Sugita Tsyguo tells Liu Zhihua about making life sweet in China's capital.

The small cubes of ganache are black and rich, and melt with the sweetness of Belgian dark chocolate, German cream and rum. A light dusting of cocoa powder adds an echo of bitterness.

"It's a perfect Valentine - bittersweet, maybe like love itself," says Sugita Tsyguo, a Japanese chocolate master who has settled in a Beijing suburb to bring his culinary arts to the capital.