Summer is a slow season for us in chocolate and, after 2 years of business reinvention and hosting over 300 online chocolate tastings, I’m looking forward to a REAL vacation with my family starting this Thursday.
My vision for this time away is simple — I want everyday to feel like a Saturday. I’m looking forward to drinking coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon, and tasting lots of new chocolate before dinner. During this time away, I’ll take a break from posting on social media but will be checking email daily.
I’ll resume hosting private tastings in July and ticketed events in September. The 37 Chocolates shop with be closed from this Wednesday, June 8, to Wednesday, July 6. If you’d like to stock up on some bars for the summer, I recommend you do that now! You don’t want to miss the oat and coconut crunch of Hogarth Chocolate’s new Anzac bar.
June is also a good time to read about chocolate, explore new chocolate shops, and catch up on Netflix shows. Here are some links for you to enjoy:
- How to store chocolate during summer
- A modern chocolate-lover’s guide to Philadelphia
- The 37 Chocolates guide to Paris – part 1
- The 37 Chocolates guide to Paris – part 2
- 2022 DC Chocolate Festival recap
- My top 5 books for new chocolate enthusiasts
Recently, I fell head over heels for The 7 Lives of Lea, a French Netflix mini-series about a teenager traveling back in time every night to save a teenage boy’s life. You’ll love the story as much as the breathtaking setting.
Please sign up 37 Chocolates newsletter to be notified of blog updates and upcoming ticketed chocolate tastings, which I no longer post about here! For corporate and private tastings, please fill out this form and I’ll get back to you within 48 hours.
Hello Estelle,
I stumbled on your contribution in an article on the recently ended Washing DC chocolate Festival held at the French Embassy in Washington.
My discovery of the related article is as a result of my interest and ongoing research about artisinal or craft chocolate which has had critical acclaim over recent years and which continues to gain currency albeit in a variety of spaces. So I thoroughly enjoyed the fascinating insights about artisinal chocolate.
Particularly interesting were highlights of single origin bean producing countries which seem to be gaining a good measure of limelight. Countries such as Madagascar.
While this is positively encouraging..permit me to highlight a feature of the article which is rather disappointing. I am referring to the only commentary made regarding two notable countries in the world that are frankly responsible for producing premium cocoa, 70% of the world’s cocoa, a vast contribution to cocoa and chocolate.
Now I strongly believe that many commentators will appreciate that the entire value chain of the chocolate industry will not exist as we know it today without the two countries namely Ghana and Cote D’ivoire. Yet it seems that the only aspect in which the two countries are referenced is solely in relation to child labour.
I believe a balanced approach could have been made. It appears by all accounts that the DC festival was a huge success which saw exponential numbers of visitors and patronage.
The Audience would have benefitted richly from highlights of the sacrifices and positive contributions of the two countries in terms of cocoa and more importantly the enormous contributions of cocoa farmers from both countries to the growth of the chocolate industry.. And also a sincere commentary on the underlying reasons why African cocoa farmers make the greatest contribution to the entire chocolate world and yet remain systemically empoverished. Factors such as the unfair pricing of a commodity that has systemically over a century and a half been manipulated by Western interest and stakeholders.
Some of these issues which contribute to real poverty in the cocoa sector must be brought to bear to educate the unsuspecting consumer, many of whom do not know this fact.
Also the DC craft chocolate festival could have invited and promoted artisinal chocolotiers from places such as Ghana to highlight that there is definitely the emergence of craft chocolate making from source..
That is why I want to embark on, in the not to distant future, a journey to bring together artisinal chocolotiers in Ghana and promote them to the world on a platform.
I’m sure I will benefit immensely from your experience in this space.
Thank you
Best regards
Nicholas Amoah
Dear Nicolas, thank you for reading my recap of the festival on The Chocolate Professor website, I appreciate your thoughtful comments on the absence of Ghanaian voices at the show. I hope you’ll appreciate the following interview of Benjamin Setor Gbadago, a writer & cocoa enthusiast in Ghana: https://www.thechocolateprofessor.com/blog/ghana-chocolate-stories