Sugar Savvy

Events like Salon du Chocolat always remind me of how beloved the cocoa bean is, especially in Europe. I feel giddy with excitement when an exhibit or tasting of chocolate is offered. Somehow chocolate makes the world feel right.

So it’s no surprise that I visited not one, but two chocolate museums in my travels recently. The real surprise was discovering that, like snowflakes, no chocolate museum is exactly like another.

Museu de la Xocolata is located in Barcelona, Spain. Tucked away in the La Ribera neighborhood, it’s tiny and nondescript. The main counter inside works as ticket booth, café, and chocolate store. The rest of the museum traces the history of chocolate, with a few exhibits and kiosks detailing production and ingestion of cocoa.

But the majority of the museum housed chocolate sculptures - from a rendition of a cathedral to cheesy Disney characters. I was disappointed by the lack of samples and tastings, and was able to navigate the place in less than half an hour. I had a cup of hot chocolate at the café before leaving; it was delicious, thick, and comforting, yet I felt that I hadn’t learned many new things or been very impressed by the museum. It had a sleepy, slightly dusty atmosphere that contrasted both with the vibrant culture of Barcelona and with the excitement that chocolate usually causes.

After this first chocolate museum experience, I didn’t expect things to be very different when I visited Schokoladenmuseum in Cologne. But Germany always has a way of surprising you when you least expect it.

Schokoladenmuseum lives right on the Rhine River in Cologne, in a historic building with a glass addition that makes the whole place look like a ship. As I crossed the footbridge and entered the huge building, I could already tell that things here would be different.

When I paid for admission at the ticket booth, I was handed my change and a piece of chocolate. My nose picked up scents reminiscent of a kitchen where brownies are baking in the oven. A small greenhouse gave a sense of what it was like in the rainforests where the cocoa plant is grown. Room after room detailed the history, production, and problems associated with chocolate. I appreciated the fact that fair trade and child labor were mentioned - coffee often overshadows chocolate on these issues, but it’s something we should be mindful of as consumers.

Then the real fun began: the small rooms opened up to a giant glass-walled room that was a working chocolate factory! You could climb up steps to peer down into shiny stainless steel machines that melted and tempered chocolate, watch conveyer belts transport the stamped bars, and learn about truffle and hollow chocolate production. Smiling workers in hair nets wrapped and bagged the tempting finished products to be sold in the museum store.

And the pièce de résistance - an enormous gold chocolate fountain! A nice worker carefully dipped wafer cookies into the river of chocolate and handed them out to all museum-goers. We were even offered seconds. What a lucky woman - having a job that makes everyone smile.

The upper floors of the museum finished off with chocolate in films, chocolate in history, and replicas of chocolate shops. I couldn’t believe how many different themes they could associate with chocolate.

I spent about two hours wandering the museum and finished up with a relaxing hour in the café, where various types of hot chocolate were offered and served in giant glasses. It was surreal to sit there and watch the snow falling gently onto the banks of the river outside while I was snugly ensconced in a cocoon of chocolate aromas.

And what did I leave with? Seven different kinds of chocolate from the store, a little more knowledge on how chocolate is made, and a sweet taste in my mouth from all the free samples. If only every museum I went to made me feel this way!