Our adventure in Chocolate began the day we lost my father in a small grocery store in the Alps. We had just flown to Switzerland that morning and traveled by train to the little town of Meiringen. Our goal: to fend off jetlag long enough to buy a few things at the Migros Market for a quick supper and then crash until the next morning. Through the fog of our drowsiness, we noticed that my father was gone. Our first thought was that he might have succumbed to the quiet summer's day warmth and had dozed off, unnoticed, in some corner of the shop. It was what we all wanted to do, but when we finally found him he was quite awake, deep in thought and calculation, in front of a shelf loaded with bars and bars and bars of chocolate. There were milk chocolate bars, dark chocolate bars, those with nuts, fruit infused, marzipan filled and more and more. Wide awake now and overwhelmed by the choice, we looked to see what special bar my father had chosen from this vast variety. Having grown up during the depression, he has always demanded the best value for the price. Still, we were stunned that in his hand he held a homely bar of "Budget M", the cheapest bar on the rack.
"Dad," I said. "You're in Switzerland, the land of milk chocolate. Don't get the cheap stuff here. Splurge a little!" "That's right," he replied with that often-present twinkle in his eyes. "I'm in Switzerland – even the cheapest milk chocolate here will probably be excellent."
We had to admit he had a point, but unwilling to give him an easy victory, we picked out a variety of milk chocolates, from his "Budget M" up to the most expensive premium bar. We would do a blind taste test to see how "Budget M" compared.
Though my father's cheap bar didn't come in 1st in the taste test, it did do surprisingly well. From then on we didn't roll our eyes when he bought "Budget M" for himself, and we became hooked on tasting and comparing whatever chocolate we could get our hands on. Since then we have discovered chocolate produced in Belgium and Columbia, France and Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Mexico, Scandinavia, Spain and Venezuela, made from cacao beans from the South Pacific, South America, Hawaii, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa.
"Which is the best chocolate?" people often ask. And though we do have our current favorites, that question is really for you to answer for yourself – since every person tastes and experiences chocolate differently. Each of us at The Chocolate Conspiracy has a different tasting profile; a unique set of likes and dislikes – different ideas of what we are looking for in the perfect chocolate experience.
Now our desire is to bring that experience to you. We have gathered the best chocolate we can find from around the world for you to taste and compare. If you know of a chocolate you'd like us to try to find, one that, for you, has been a memorable experience, please contact us and let us know. We love finding new chocolate to try and to share.
Come along and join us for a sensory adventure into the vast and varied world of Chocolate.