Seattle Goes Crazy For Chocolate

Chocolate lovers can rejoice. Seattle offers a variety of chocolate tours and classes to teach tourists, and locals, about the process of making chocolate.

According to Seattle Times, chocolate has recently been given a gourmet status. Instead of being content to snack on a chocolate bar, people are now treating it like fine wine or charcuterie.

The new status comes from a curiosity in cacao, the bean like seed that chocolate comes from. Classes about cacao are attracting a large variety of groups from company retreats to bachelorette parties. The cover topics from how to make ganache and truffles to exploring fair-trade issues and the health benefits of dark chocolate.

Theo Chocolate and Oh! Chocolate both offer good beginner classes that fill up fast. Other classes such as those at Chocolopolis treat chocolate like fine wine and focus on a "single-estate chocolate" and "terroir".

A good rule of thumb for people new to the world of chocolate classes is to choose a class that focuses more on sampling chocolate than an in-depth lecture on the history of chocolate making.