My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer
Sunday, January 12, 2025
I realize now that Belgium is has a slightly shinier reputation for their chocolate than Germany, but I forgot about that when I booked my ticket for the Chocoversum. When the option for doing anything relating to chocolate came up as a choice my immediate response was: Yes!
The first tour in English was at 10am. Our guide introduced herself and handed each of us a thin waffle wafer as we entered. She told us to not eat the cookie (what?!) until we had a chance to put some chocolate on it (ah! understood.). I was already delighted.
We were immediately greeted by a chocolate fountain:
complete with little spouts pouring sweet, creamy chocolate.
We then spent the next 90 minutes learning the history of chocolate as well as the entire process of how chocolate was made from bean to bar. And the best part was that we got to taste it every step of the process – which was fun, though it is absolutely best at the end.
Cocoa beans are harvested in countries near the equator and roasted in something that looks like this:
We stopped to take a break from the history lesson to make our own chocolate bars (so they could set by the time the tour finished).
My unique concoction had banana sprinkles, chocolate candies, cookie chunks, and some peanut butter crumbles.
Back to the lesson:
The roasted cocoa beans got smooshed and put in this machine, where the oil separates – which is what coco butter is.
This poster answered my most pressing question: what exactly is the difference between Dark Chocolate, Milk Chocolate and White Chocolate:
More machines. More tasting. I appreciated the entertaining descriptions from the guide, even though I hardly remember anything she said.
And I caught a nice sunset on the way back to the ship. A sweet ending to a very sweet day.