Blogs
ChocoMuseo
is the interactive Cacao and Chocolate Museum in Cusco, Peru.
In ChocoMuseo, you will be able to learn the secrets of chocolate, its production process, and the history of cacao since the Maya, 1000 years ago.
We'll also organize workshops for you, where you'll make your own chocolate, right from the cacao beans!
If you want to go even deeper in your knowledge, we'll bring you to real cacao plantations, where you'll meet farmers and share their passion.
Finally you will enjoy a chocolate byte or a hot chocolate on our balconies overwiewing the Plaza Regocijo.
We will be more than happy to welcome you and teach you our passion of cacao and chocolate!
Hi all,
This is Rob Monahan from ProfessorChocolate.com
We are trying to raise funds through Kickstarter tocomplete the next two books in our NYC Chocolate Walking Tour series... The Uptown Guide and The Hot Chocolate Guide. These books are meant to bring the 'consumers' to the chocolate! 100% of the money raised will be used for production and marketing of the books.
Thanks!
Anyone wants to see the quality of hazelnuts or cocoa beans? any buyer of guillotine?
By Hilal ÇAKMAK, 2011-02-24
Having recently concluded the first playoff chocolate tasting party, I find myself feeling a little disappointed. Don't get me wrong, both the Lindt -Double Milk Chocolate and Marabou -Milk Chocolate are excellent chocolate bars! However, I'm yet to be awestruck or mesmerized by one of them. So many chocolate bars have just been average. Eric Nylund , where can I find a chocolate bar that matches your descriptions !!? Do they only exist in fantasy worlds!? *Sigh*, surely there is such a chocolate bar in the real world too!
As the Quest For The World's Best Chocolate Bar continues, let me share with you my most important characteristics of the perfect chocolate bar.
http://thequestfortheworldsbestchocolatebar.blogspot.com/2011/02/characteristics-of-best-chocolate-bar.html
[Moderator Note: There were broken links to Eric Nylund and Descriptions . The links were removed and Bernt was notified in the hopes of fixing them.]
Last year on February 11th I was in London to attend a tasting of Seventypercent.com with Art Pollard of Amano, which I enjoyed very much. This year on February 11th I was in Kortrijk to visit my chocolate friend Geert Vercruysse ( www.patisserievercruysse.be ).
I met Geert at a chocolate symposium for professionals arranged by Hidde de Brabander, a talented patissier/chocolatier in the Netherlands, May last year. I represented Original Beans (I am their ambassador). Geert was very enthusiastic and I was impressed by his tasting vocabulaire. It took a lot of months before I had the opportunity to visit him. But finally....
What a beautiful shop he has! Pastries, homemade chocolates and a fine selection of bars. Original Beans' had just arrived and were already displayed on the counter. First I had to taste some delicious pastries and chocolates. My favourite was a chocolate with a Pacari Raw ganache. Geert makes everything on his own, unbelievable! After that there was some work to do: making chocolate cakes with a mousse of Valrhona's Tanariva and a mousse of Amano's Madagascar, see photos below. Gorgeous!
At last I did some research in the shop. Could I find a bar I didn't taste so far? Yes! Bouga Cacao and the Heritage Limited Edition of El Ceibo.
February 14th is my birthday. I will treat my colleagues on Geert's fine chocolates. I'm sure they'll love it!
Thank you Geert for your warm welcome. I had a wonderful time!
Last week, we have finally received our sample of cacao beans from the cooperative we work with (Jose Olaya - Article on our website here ).
With that cacao we made the first steps of chocolate making with Sr Walter Campana in the city of Cusco in Peru.
This video will show you the first steps of our artisanal chocolate process : Toasting, Husk removing, winnowing and grinding.
ChocoMuseo Working with cacao - Trabajando con cacao
Please watch our website ChocoMuseo Peru for more information on our work.
As first and only Chocolaterie in the Netherlands, we yesterday received Duffys Chocolate, the second, artisan bean-to-bar company in the UK, in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire.
All bars are single origin, so all from one harvest, one certain area in a certain country and therefore all of them with a certain tast profile Each batch of beans is conched between 40-70 hours.
The bars we have in our Chocolaterie in Amsterdam are:
- Corazon del Ecuador- 43% milkchocolate,
- Corazon del Ecuador72% and 83% dark chocolate. The beans are from Calceta in Ecuador.
- Star of Peru - 70% dark chocolate
- Simply the ultimate is the Indio Rojo, made of the 72% Xoco Criollo from Honduras.
All chocolate is also single origin, handmade, fairly-traded and organic.
ChocoMuseo, the cacao and chocolate museum in Cusco, Peru will open soon.
To have an idea of how it will look like, please look here for taking a 3D virtual tour.
Next step will be to have a real virtual tour where you can read every sign and learn about cacao and chocolate.
Tomorrow, stone-grinding machines will arrive from the US and we will finally be able to taste and make chocolate with our organic fermented cacao beans obtained from the Jose Olaya Cooperative.
We will tell you more about it in the next post.