Hamburg - Chocolate Museum

Hi everyone :)

As promised here is my blog post about the chocolate museum I went to in Hamburg.

On Saturday morning my dad was having a meeting with a friend and I decided not to tag along and do my own thing instead. The night before I had seen a flyer from the chocolate museum and who can say no to that?

The word chocolate is derived from Xocóatl which means bitter water and pure cocoa has as many roughages as the same amount of wholemeal bread. Bet you didn't know that did you :D Well I didn't either but I thought those were interesting things to know :)

We had a guided tour through the museum and even got to make our own chocolate, it was great. 

The guide took us through all the stages it takes to get from a cocoa fruit and then the bean to chocolate. It was quite interesting to see.

We got to try the different stages of the chocolate as we went along. And I can tell you cocoa beans do not taste as good as they smell :D I ate them anyway and a lot of other things.

That is a cocoa bean in my hand there, it was dried and roasted and smells like heaven. Tastes disgusting though :D

It is quite fascinating to see through what stages chocolate goes before we can it in a bar at the supermarket.

First the beans get harvested, then they lay in the sun for about 10 days after that they are packed in jute sacks and shipped to their destinations. 

The beans are then checked to see if there are any with mould, if so the whole sack has the be thrown away and in some cases even the whole shipment. 

After they have been checked they get roasted and then out into a machine where they are mixed with sugar and other things depending on the chocolate. 

The paste that comes out of that does taste similar to chocolate but nothing like what we are used to.

that is my chocolate that I made. I gave it to my boyfriend as a gift .... I did steal a bit to try though :D

The whole process of making chocolate takes forever. Like I did not think it would take that long. 

And fun fact: We would have to eat 200 to 300 bars of chocolate if we wanted to get a chocolate rush. Do with that information what you want :)

I had an amazing day at the chocolate museum and even bought some prezzies for my mum's birthday. Like drink chocolate and such. 

But I have to say I was quite full after a morning of trying chocolate in all different kinds of stages. It does fill you up quite well to be honest, but I loved every minute of it.

So if you ever get the chance to go to the chocolate museum in Hamburg please do so it is a very fun experience :)

And one last (probably useless) fact before I let you go: Woman do like chocolate so much because we have a hormone (oestrogen) in our body that intensifies the ability of chocolate to lift up our mood.  

So there you have it :)

'All you need is love. But a little bit of chocolate here and there doesn't hurt either'

- Charles M. Schulz 

x

J.