November 7-8, 2020 The Northwest Chocolate Festival is on November 7-8, 2020 and presents two days of pure chocolate magic and decadence! Taste Chocolate from around the world, watch demonstrations in chocolate, listen to lectures, watch slideshows and be a chocolatier for a weekend at the best festival for chocolate lovers in the world!
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Welcome to the Northwest Chocolate Festival at the Smith Cove Pier 91 in Seattle.
Mission: We are proud to feature craft chocolate artisans from around the country in our city for the tasting and talks at the Northwest Chocolate Festival. Visit the website for more details about the hands-on workshops, tasting chocolate from around the world, chocolate classes, the celebration party, and keynote panel presentations featuring voices from the chocolate world.
Operating as usual
Only the best craft chocolate brands end up in The Chocolate Club monthly subscription box 🎁🍫📬
We make sure that the chocolate we select for you is always fine flavor, handmade, with minimal & high-quality ingredients, using cacao that is ethically sourced, paid a premium price and traceable all the way back to its place of origin. Get ready to taste award-winning, innovative and international chocolate 🌎😋
Join today (USA only): https://www.thechocolateclub.org/
Today we fly to Paris with our minds inside Le Chocolat Alain Ducasse to witness the mouth-watering behind the scenes of the Milk Chocobar: a stylish geometrical shape that hides a heart made with almond and cornflake praline combined with a caramel ganache, covered in Madagascar 45% milk chocolate 😋🍫🍮
Forget about the long list of ingredients you usually find in supermarket chocolate!
When it comes to craft bean-to-bar chocolate, here are the minimal ingredients you can expect in each kind of chocolate:
🍫 Dark Chocolate: cocoa beans and sugar.
Nothing else is needed when the cacao used is flavorful on its own. Usually cane sugar, coconut sugar, panela, honey, maple syrup or other natural alternative sugars are used instead of highly-refined white sugar. Cocoa butter could also be among the ingredients, added to confer extra creaminess. Vanilla and soy/sunflower lecithin can also be found at the end of the list, but in rare occasions.
🥛 Milk Chocolate: cocoa beans, sugar and milk powder.
To the fine cacao and the sugar, milk is added to round off the more intense notes from the beans. Here vanilla can be found more often, to confer extra sweetness.
🤍 White Chocolate: sugar, milk powder and cocoa butter.
There are no cocoa solids here (the "brown" part of the beans), but only the fatty component which is the cocoa butter. Together with sugar and milk powder, these 3 ingredients create the perfect treat for those craving extreme sweetness and creaminess. Here vanilla is almost always a common flavoring.
What is your favorite kind of chocolate?
The packages that the members of The Chocolate Club receive are the result of over a decade of tasting artisan chocolate, connecting consumers with new craft makers, and educating industry professionals all over the world 🤓🍫🌎
We have selected the best, most fun, socially impactful, and flavor forward specialty chocolate makers in the world for you to enjoy!
For only $42 per month, you will receive expertly curated artisan chocolate delivered to your door (4 chocolate bars with each delivery). Exclusive access is also included with your membership to virtual chocolate factory tours, talks with chocolate makers, virtual hang-outs, and tastes of new, signature and limited edition products. You may cancel the membership at any time, there is no contract 🍫📬
Join today: https://www.thechocolateclub.org/gift-membership/p/monthly-membership
We wish a very Merry Christmas to our chocolate friends all over the world 🎄🍫🌎
We love all the craft chocolate bars by La Folie India, but which one would YOU choose between The Berry Good 🍓, The Crunchy Cocoa Nibs 🍫 and The Creamy Coconut Milk 🥥?
Sign up for our Chocolate Club membership to receive an expertly curated box of artisan chocolate every month with the best international brands on the market 🍫🌎
The perfect occasion to discover new brands, origins and flavors. We have been in the chocolate business for the past 13 years, so let us delight your palate with only the best 🎀
Discover all the details: https://www.thechocolateclub.org/
We love to follow Daniel O'Doherty from www.cacaoservices.com to learn all about cacao biology and agronomy 🌱🍫🌴
Here is an interesting perspective from his latest post on fermentation:
"Old school: fresh cacao, wild/native fermentation, banana leaves, wood box. Common questions regarding traditional fermentation in wood boxes without a starter culture... “Can’t this be improved or modernized with stainless steel or plastic vessels, rotating barrel fermenters, lab-produced cultures, etc, etc?” Sure. But anyone that’s worked with small farmers that grow the vast majority of world production knows these are not particularly viable options.
Further, the best cacao in the world is produced with traditional methods, as is this box of Maui-grown cacao. In medical diagnostics, there’s a famous phrase, “When you hear hooves, think horses not zebras”. If cacao fermentation is not producing the desired outcome, look for the simple, often overlooked problems instead of thinking of expensive, exotic, and cockamamie solutions. Attention to detail, use all your senses, look closely. The devil is in the detail.
I love innovation and constantly experiment with fermentation, but if it’s not realistic for farmers, it becomes of only academic or boutique interest."
Winner of the GOLD Award in the Inclusion Chocolate category at the Chocolate Alliance Awards, Kahkow USA shows us the creative process behind one of their best-selling bars: La Magdalena + Candied Nibs.
90% dark chocolate with cacao from the Dominican Republic is enriched with crunchy & sweet cacao candied nibs. All crafted with artisan methods, ethically sourced, simple ingredients and incredibly delicious.
Who's ready to take a bite? 😋🍫
Join THE CHOCOLATE CLUB to receive a monthly delivery of the best artisan, ethical and award-winning chocolate on the market: a special box with 4 precious bars delivered to your doorstep every month to discover new brands, origins and flavors 😋🍫🌍
Learn more: https://www.thechocolateclub.org/
Join the ClubChocolate Lovers Unite! Join Now The ultimate chocolate lover monthly subscription service. It’s saying I love you, every month. In other words it’s gonna be the best year of your life. We are a community of chocolate lovers and taste nerds The packages that our members receive are ...
We could watch Vesta Chocolate in New Jersey fill their artisanal bonbons with some delicious ganache all day long 🍫❤️🍫❤️
Afraid that you are not going to find that last-minute gift?
We've got you covered 😉🎁🍫
With just a couple of clicks, you can gift a membership to The Chocolate Club to your chocoholic loved ones! They will receive 4 chocolate bars from artisan, ethical and renowned chocolate brands every month directly to their doorstep. A sweet, thoughtful and unforgettable present to make them discover new brands and flavors in the comfort of their home 🏠💕
Discover our memberships (USA only): https://www.thechocolateclub.org/gift-membership
Whatever you do in life, do it with chocolate. Join Now Monthly Membership Join today for only $42 per month to receive expertly curated artisan chocolate delivered to your door! You will receive 4 chocolate bars with each delivery. Exclusive access is included with your membership to virtual chocol...
The perfect breakfast for chocoholics: cereal milk chocolate by The Chocolate Lab in Calgary, Canada. Because who wouldn't want to wake up to such a sweet morning 😋🍫🥛
When fine cacao is treated and crafted with care, the resulting chocolate offers an endless rainbow of flavors 🍫🎨
These are not ingredients added to the chocolate, but the intrinsic flavors that fine cacao carries as a mixed result of genetics, terroir, origin, weather and post-harvesting processes.
Here are just some of the main categories of tasting notes that you can experience in your fine chocolate:
- FRUITY 🍋: passion fruit, mango, raspberry, orange, lemon, etc..
- FLORAL 🌸: jasmine, lavender, rose, hibiscus, lemongrass, etc..
- SPICY 🌶: nutmeg, clover, cinnamon, ginger, pepper, licorice, etc..
- EARTHY 🌱: wood, soil, mushroom, leather, moss, etc..
- NUTTY 🌰: almond, peanut, hazelnut, walnut, pecan, etc..
When you choose fine chocolate, even the simplest dark chocolate can become an exciting journey for your palate!
And now let us know: what tasting notes do you enjoy the most in chocolate? 👇
With all this running around to buy gifts for other people, have you stopped to consider a gift for yourself? 🎁
If you live in the USA, we might have the perfect treat for you: craft chocolate delivered to your doorstep every month.
With our Chocolate Club monthly membership, you receive 4 full-size chocolate bars made by artisan brands that we personally know and trust, crafted with minimal and ethical ingredients with fine cacao from all over the world, that will make your days sweeter with unforgettable flavors 😋🍫
Gift yourself the Chocolate Club membership today: https://www.thechocolateclub.org/gift-membership/p/monthly-membership
The team behind green bean to bar chocolate in Japan, winner of the Chocolate Alliance Awards in the Milk Chocolate and Inclusion Chocolate categories, places the chocolate bars on the vibrating platform and then vigorously taps them on the table to avoid the formation of air bubbles during the molding process. This is why their craft chocolate bars are always beautiful and in perfect conditions 🍫🎀
Have you ever tried Green Bean To Bar chocolate?
What's your favorite bar?
We can't think of a better gift for the holidays than artisanal, award-winning, ethical and flavorful chocolate 🍫🎁
To say "I love you", "I appreciate you" or "I miss you", gift a Chocolate Club membership (3, 6 or 12 months) so that your loved ones can receive a monthly delivery of the best chocolate on the market directly on their doorstep.
A truly unforgettable gift 🎀
Check out all the details: https://www.thechocolateclub.org/gift-membership
Inside a cocoa pod there is a white pulp widely referred to as "mucilage" 🌱🔍
You will find the mucilage surrounding the cocoa beans like a protective veil, but this protective layer is far from being useless: it is an essential component in the fermentation process, a crucial step to develop the flavor precursors inside the cocoa beans.
In cocoa producing countries, the mucilage is also used in the kitchen for smoothies and sweet beverages, as it tastes fresh, fruity and exotic.
Some companies in Europe and the US are also launching new products like cacao juices with cacao mucilage as the main ingredients, and even experimenting with including this sweet pulp inside their chocolate bars 😋🍫
Have you ever tasted the delicious cocoa pulp?
How did you like it?
Winner at the Chocolate Alliance Awards, Metiisto artisan chocolate in Australia not only crafts bean-to-bar chocolate from the finest cocoa beans, but also uses its own fine flavor and ethical chocolate for sophisticated bonbons and creations:
"What's got premium Australian hazelnuts, Metiisto milk chocolate gianduja and is covered in our award winning Tenaru 67% dark chocolate?
These lovelies do 🌰❤🥛
100% made by us from scratch in Toowoomba."
Bravo, Metiisto!
We have been creating taste experiences for chocolate lovers since 2008.
Our work includes the world renown Northwest Chocolate Festival that is considered the top show for artisan chocolate in the United States. We created the Chocolate Makers UnConference in 2014 to organize the growing craft chocolate industry. In 2020 we formed the Chocolate Alliance to provide professional training and events for the chocolate industry.
We woke up one day and realized that our chocolate-loving friends may enjoy learning about new chocolate makers, exploring the range of flavors possible in artisan chocolate, and understanding the ethics and direct trade models possible for cacao farmers. We decided right then to begin sending chocolate to anyone who wished to dive into the flavor-forward world of specialty and craft chocolate.
We are excited to share the joyful experience of artisan chocolate with you. The makers and cacao growers we feature will delight your heart, enhance your tasting skills, and celebrate the love of chocolate 🍫❤️
Get a monthly membership for yourself or gift it to your loved ones: https://www.thechocolateclub.org/gift-membership
Whatever you do in life, do it with chocolate. Join Now Monthly Membership Join today for only $42 per month to receive expertly curated artisan chocolate delivered to your door! You will receive 4 chocolate bars with each delivery. Exclusive access is included with your membership to virtual chocol...
"Sugar-Suga! After stone grinding our Organic beans for 24 hours, we add our Organic Cane Sugar and continue for another 48 hours."
From Manchester in New Hampshire, Loon Chocolate shows us the coolest slow motion of chocolate in the melangeur 🤩🍫
Still looking for that perfect holiday gift? 🎁
We've got you covered! ✨ Give the sweetest gift to the Chocolate Lover in your life! 🍫 We specially curate and deliver Artisan Chocolate to your doorstep each month. Gift an ongoing monthly membership or select a limited time gift membership. 🗣Today is the LAST DAY to join to receive your December chocolate delivery shipment featuring @fortechocolates! Click the link to join. https://www.thechocolateclub.org/
Join the ClubChocolate Lovers Unite! Join Now The ultimate chocolate lover monthly subscription service. It’s saying I love you, every month. In other words it’s gonna be the best year of your life. We are a community of chocolate lovers and taste nerds The packages that our members receive are ...
Spying on our Chocolate Alliance award winners is our favorite activity 🍫🏆
Winner of the Gold Award in Best Bon Bon or Truffle category for their Ocumare Confection, Garcia Nevett - Chocolatier de Miami in Florida is preparing some mouth-watering Matcha chocolates: matcha green tea, almond milk and white chocolate covered in dark chocolate.
Who's a matcha lover? 🌿🍵💚
Craft chocolate is so much more than just a sugar rush.
It's the dedication of the cocoa farmers.
The skills of the chocolate makers.
The commitment to high quality and ethical practices by everybody involved in the supply chain such as importers, distributors, educators, tasters and many others.
We want to celebrate craft chocolate by delivering 4 chocolate bars to your doorstep every month: award-winning brands, exotic inclusions, different origins, simple ingredients, mesmerizing designs. You can enjoy craft chocolate in the comfort of your home, and give it the attention and recognition it deserves.
Sign up to receive your monthly delivery: https://www.thechocolateclub.org/gift-membership/p/monthly-membership
Sunday relaxation brought to you by bean-to-bar maker Fruition Chocolate and some incredible hand tempering skills 🖐🍫
This is what the craft is all about.
Only the best craft chocolate brands make it into our monthly subscription boxes 🍫📫
The packages that the members of THE CHOCOLATE CLUB receive are the result of over a decade of tasting artisan chocolate, connecting consumers with new craft makers, and educating industry professionals. We have selected the best, most fun, socially impactful, and flavor forward specialty chocolate makers in the world. 4 bars every month for you to enjoy in the comfort of your house with family & friends, or all for yourself 😋🏠
Subscribe today (USA only) 👇
Join the ClubChocolate Lovers Unite! Join Now The ultimate chocolate lover monthly subscription service. It’s saying I love you, every month. In other words it’s gonna be the best year of your life. We are a community of chocolate lovers and taste nerds The packages that our members receive are ...
We wish all chocolate professionals and chocolate lovers a very Happy Thanksgiving Day full of artisanal sweetness 🎉🍫🦃
We are always enchanted by the behind the scenes of Manoa Chocolate Hawaii, craft bean-to-bar maker in Hawaii and multiple award winner at the Chocolate Alliance Awards 🍫🏆
"Back at it this fine Monday molding some Hawaiian chocolate from the Big Island. The vibrating conveyor that you see here helps us remove air bubbles and evenly distribute the chocolate throughout the mold."
Who would love to help out? 😋
Do you know that chocolate can be "aged"? 🍫⏰
After conching, some craft makers decide to intentionally age their chocolate before tempering it. This means that they prefer to wait anywhere from a couple of weeks to even six months before turning their chocolate into bars ready to sell.
This is done based on the belief that, when you make chocolate from bean to bar, without artificial additives or preservatives, the flavors continue to develop for weeks after grinding/conching. So the makers make big blocks of untempered chocolate, wrap them tight and store them in a dry place for as long as they want to with the goal of giving the chocolate a more developed and deeper flavor before being sold.
This stage of the process isn't essential, but may completely change the aromatic profile of a chocolate bar 😋🍫
2001 West Garfield Street, Pier 91
Seattle, WA
98119
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| Sunday | 10:00 - 17:00 |
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The team behind green bean to bar chocolate in Japan, winner of the Chocolate Alliance Awards in the Milk Chocolate and Inclusion Chocolate categories, places the chocolate bars on the vibrating platform and then vigorously taps them on the table to avoid the formation of air bubbles during the molding process. This is why their craft chocolate bars are always beautiful and in perfect conditions 🍫🎀 Have you ever tried Green Bean To Bar chocolate? What's your favorite bar?
Winner at the Chocolate Alliance Awards, Metiisto artisan chocolate in Australia not only crafts bean-to-bar chocolate from the finest cocoa beans, but also uses its own fine flavor and ethical chocolate for sophisticated bonbons and creations: "What's got premium Australian hazelnuts, Metiisto milk chocolate gianduja and is covered in our award winning Tenaru 67% dark chocolate? These lovelies do 🌰❤🥛 100% made by us from scratch in Toowoomba." Bravo, Metiisto!
"Sugar-Suga! After stone grinding our Organic beans for 24 hours, we add our Organic Cane Sugar and continue for another 48 hours." From Manchester in New Hampshire, Loon Chocolate shows us the coolest slow motion of chocolate in the melangeur 🤩🍫
Spying on our Chocolate Alliance award winners is our favorite activity 🍫🏆 Winner of the Gold Award in Best Bon Bon or Truffle category for their Ocumare Confection, Garcia Nevett - Chocolatier de Miami in Florida is preparing some mouth-watering Matcha chocolates: matcha green tea, almond milk and white chocolate covered in dark chocolate. Who's a matcha lover? 🌿🍵💚
Sunday relaxation brought to you by bean-to-bar maker Fruition Chocolate and some incredible hand tempering skills 🖐🍫 This is what the craft is all about.
We are always enchanted by the behind the scenes of Manoa Chocolate Hawaii, craft bean-to-bar maker in Hawaii and multiple award winner at the Chocolate Alliance Awards 🍫🏆 "Back at it this fine Monday molding some Hawaiian chocolate from the Big Island. The vibrating conveyor that you see here helps us remove air bubbles and evenly distribute the chocolate throughout the mold." Who would love to help out? 😋
"Rose Pistachio bar is such a fun chocolate bar to make and also one of the most time consuming. We literally take each edible rose and break the petals part from the inedible bud by hand (of course wearing gloves!). Then pounds and pounds of rose petals and pistachios go into the grinder, which runs for days 🌹🍫" This is the extreme to which craft chocolate makers will go to offer you a special, high-quality and unique product made with love and care. Bravo, Madhu Chocolate!
From New Jersey, Vesta Chocolate is tempting us with this silky, creamy hazelnut cacao spread made from scratch in their chocolate factory. Who's got the spoon ready to indulge? 😋🥄
In Seattle, Fran's Chocolates is getting ready for the holiday season. These Peppermint Imperiales are dark chocolates filled with soft, silken dark chocolate centers, infused with artfully balanced peppermint flavor, and sprinkled with bits of peppermint candy. Who's ready to stock up on all the new holiday releases? 😋🍫🎄☃️
"Three colors, a brush and an airbrush...that's all!" Today we fly to Russia to check out the amazing skills of chocolatier Chocolat Emotions (https://www.instagram.com/chocolat_emotions/) 😍🍫 No, these are not phone cases, but mesmerizing chocolate bars!
The 2020 NW Chocolate Festival virtual edition is now live on our website! Link in bio - check out great education seminars on chocolate, available all weekend! Let’s celebrate! #chocolatefestival #nwchocolate #craftchocolate #chocolatelover #cacao
We love when craft chocolate makers show us the behind the scenes of their mouth-watering creations! Here is the making of the Pumpkin Pie Crunch bar by Manoa Chocolate Hawaii: pumpkin white chocolate with candied pecans, walnuts, and nibs. Who's ready for a taste test? 😋🎃🍫🍰
Craft chocolate gets messy, but someone's got to do it! Mouth-watering behind the scenes brought to you by Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate in Eureka, California 😍🍫 What's your favorite Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate bar? (Orange Bourbon Pecan, anybody? 🍊🥃)
Matcha Krispies with Raspberry Caramel by artisan chocolate shop Stick With Me Sweets in New York 🍵🍓🍮 Always a pleasure to see the results of skills, patience, quality ingredients and a lot of care 💕
On this Monday morning, we are getting tempted by Exquisito Chocolates, craft bean-to-bar maker in Miami: "Pulling toasted white 🍫 this am. Our signature white chocolate has more toffee and caramel notes that make for a guilty pleasure when combined with our cereal and cookie mixes." We can almost smell this delicious chocolate from afar 🍮🍪🍞
Movable drying trays are useful to get the cocoa beans under the sun at the most convenient times of the day and protect them when it starts to rain 🌧🌱☀️ CACAO FIJI shows them in action: "We love our easy-to-pull sun drying trays, and we are blessed to have some good sun today. These beans are chocolate waiting to happen in Australia 🍫🇦🇺"
From Eureka in California, Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate gives us a sneak peek of their peculiar chocolate making process: "First step in dry conching! Dropping roughly a 50/50 mix of liquor and sugar into the conche for 24 hours. In this defatted state we are able to add a lot more energy directly to the particles to improve texture size and flavor to name a few." Fascinating, isn't it? 😍🍫
Our heads are spinning today for Charm School Chocolate and their delicious vegan white chocolate in the making 🍫🥛🌿 Have you tried it yet?
A sea of bonbons as far as the eye can see, gently offered by Recchiuti Confections in San Francisco 😍🍫🇺🇸
When you use great machines, sky is the limit 🤩 Here is the Rumbo Kid melangeur by FBM Boscolo working on a white chocolate created with toasted brown sugar, powdered milk and, of course, cacao butter. Who's ready for a taste test? 🥛🍫👅
"When refining Costa Esmeraldas cacao, there’s always the distinct smell of bananas that waft off 🍌. Often times the smells that come off the cacao during refining are indicative of the flavors that you can taste in the finished bar." Who's ready to apply for a job at the Manoa Chocolate Hawaii factory? 😍🍫
Today we are dreaming of being inside La Folie India's chocolate factory in Mumbai, India to witness their entire bean-to-bar process made with the finest cacao on the market and the most exotic inclusions! Can you imagine the inebriating aroma coming out of these machines? 🍫👃💕
We could watch internationally renowned chocolatier Michael Recchiuti from Recchiuti Confections in San Francisco filling these Rose Caramel bonbons for hours and hours 🍫🌹🍮
Monday means it's time to grind! And this is how it looks like for craft chocolate makers 🍫🖐 Vesta Chocolate from New Jersey shows us how cocoa nibs are slowly ground and turned into smooth chocolate inside these fascinating machines called melangeurs. What a view!
"The work horse of many bean-to-bar chocolate makers is the conching machine where the chocolate keeps on rolling for hours and days to develop that rich flavor and lush silky texture that you crave for!" We ❤️ this behind the scenes by Theo & Philo Artisan Chocolates in the Philippines. Have you tried their delicious chocolate at Northwest Chocolate Festival last year? 👇
Have you ever tried Dulce de Leche White Chocolate? 🍫🥛 If you have never experienced this delicious combo of sweet flavors, chocolate maker Arcelia from Mission Chocolate in São Paulo, Brazil has got you covered 😉🇧🇷
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