For FHE on Monday we toured the Seattle Chocolates factory. A girl from church’s dad is the president of the company and he took us on a little tour. Lots of people, myself included, made lots of Willy Wonka jokes. Yes, I know that making Willy Wonka jokes in a chocolate factory is a bit cliché, but it was hard to resist. I later saw Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory playing on a TV in the tasting room and felt a little less guilty about my Wonka jokes. The factory does not employ any oompa loompas (that we were told about), but they do employ a number of people of Mexican descent who, sadly, did not teach us any morality lessons through song and dance.
The area of the factory where they actually make the chocolate wasn’t super-interesting and could easily be mistaken for a box factory, but the tasting room was awesome. The decor was very modern with white plastic chairs that swivel around and a carpet made of leather strips. We were told that we could eat as much chocolate and we wanted and I ate a lot. Since we were all Mormon the guy passing out the samples told us that all the alcohol flavored chocolates had no alcohol, but all the coffee flavored chocolates did have coffee in them. Good information. My favorite chocolate was the mimosa filled one and I’m convinced that if I were a drinker I would enjoy a tasting mimosa every now and then. Well, as long as it’s covered in chocolate.
The best part of the tour happened rather unexpectedly. The guy giving the tour told us a story about how some famous chocolatier had come to the factory and taken a pitcher of liquid chocolate and poured it right down his throat. The tour guide then said, “It’s a great experience that I want you all to have.” So he grabbed a pitcher of chocolate heated up to 115 degrees and one by one he poured some into our mouths. It was a little messy, but absolutely delicious. We also got to make our own chocolate bars and we were each given a chocolate bar that they recently invented that hasn’t hit stores yet. It was filled with peanut butter and was absolutely delicious.
Interesting fact: chocolate does not have caffeine in it; it’s added in.
Way jealous! I told Evan about the lack of oompa loompas and how you were not taught by the factory workers and his response was "We've been let down time and time again". Something funny like that.
ReplyDeleteYou end up doing the most awesome things Ben. I need to hang around you more often. I have to admit though, I spent about two minutes trying to figure out who the church's dad was (2nd sentence) :-).
ReplyDeleteTyler, I thought that sentence was confusing, too, but I couldn't think of how else to say it. I guess I should have said, "The dad of a girl from church..."
ReplyDeleteI went to the Cadbury chocolate factory, but it sounds like you had a 100% better experience.
ReplyDeleteLucky.
I was going to say that the only thing that could make this post better would have been been to have a picture or two. But I changed my mind. I think it's better for me to envision it being more Willy Wonka than it probably was.
Aaaaaaaand I agree with Tyler. I had to figure out that sentence as well.