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Monday, January 7, 2013

Taza Chocolate Factory Tour

DO THIS TOUR! That's an order.

As someone who has been on many a tour, including another chocolate factory tour, I'd have to say this one topped the cake...or the chocolate. It topped the chocolate.




Taza is a small company based on Somerville just outside of Cambridge. The factory is accessible by public transportation if you live in Boston. They practice a really cool way of making chocolate in a Mexican tradition of stone grinding. This means that the texture of the chocolate is fairly rough and a bit grainy. It was different than I was expecting, but as the samples continued, it grew on me. Not only are the flavors really simple yet rich, but the company is one I truly respect. The only ingredients in all of their chocolates are cacao beans, organic cane sugar, and whatever flavor they need for the chocolate variety (e.g. orange oil). In addition, they are a bean-to-bar company, which means that they have direct relationships with all of their farmers. What's not to love?! If you don't do the tour, you can find their chocolates for sale at Whole Foods around the country.

So, here's the recap.

First, when we arrived the samples were already out to play.
Vanilla chocolate, coffee chocolate, chipotle chili chocolate, and gingerbread chocolate. YUM!
Second, the tour was super informative - not just about how the factory works, but about how this operation actually gets their beans and roasts them. They actually receive, roast, flavor, package, and ship all of their beans out of this one facility - pretty amazing.
Third, we got to don this super sport hair nets and go back into where the chocolate is actually made. Sadly, none was being made that day, but it was still cool to see the vintage equipment they use and hear the tour guide talk about how they still make their own grinding stones right out back.



The actually cacao pods - they were huge! And a bag of dried cacao beans. 
The other thing I loved about this place was how open they were about their process and ingredients. The whole experience - even just being in the store - was super informative and made you feel like you knew what you were eating.

A painted timeline of the whole chocolate making process.
Just cacao beans and organic cane sugar! Ok, so it's not agave, but I'll take what I can get :)
Gluten, dairy, and soy free! The only thing it's not is nut free because they process the chocolate on the same equipment where they roast their own almonds for the almond chocolate bars. But come on - they roast their own almonds too!
Fourth, there were a plethora of chocolate based products I had never seen or heard of before. Extra points to Taza for creativity.





Lastly, they served us up with TWO rounds of hot chocolate made with only their own shaved chocolate whisked into hot water AND gave us unlimited samples of anything we wanted.


I was not holding back people...





My personal favorite - the salted almond. DELISH. 
The best part? I got to experience the whole thing with my sister who was visiting for the week :)


Cheers to chocolate,
AvocadoAthlete

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