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Touring the Zotter Factory
During Easter vacation we decided to visit the Zotter chocolate factory in Riegersburg, Austria which is about 1.5 hours south of Vienna in the middle of nowhere. For those not familiar with the Zotter brand, he is a famous Austrian chocolatier who those zany truffle bars with unique flavor combinations such as cheese and wine,…
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Chocolate heaven in Bern, Switzerland
I’ve never been to Switzerland before. Even though I love Swiss chocolate. Since I am living so close to Switzerland now, I accepted an invitation from Felchlin to meet with their reps at a confectionary show in Bern. I started using Felchlin chocolate in 2005 to start my Chocophilia line and the more I work…
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We are giving away one Dark & Milk Chocolate Lover’s Box
Yes, one lucky person will win a box of chocolates! Come down to our booth at City Hall or St. Albert between now and Dec 22nd and make sure to enter our draw.You could win a box of chocolate worth $50! The winner will be announced on Jan 1st.
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Announcing our final appearances in 2012
Thanks again for coming out and rediscovering Chocophilia this fall. We have a quick update for you about where we will be this month: We will be at the City Market Downtown in City Hall on the following Saturdays from 10am to 3pm: Dec 8th, Dec 15th, Dec 22nd We will also be at the St. Albert Christmas Farmer’s Market on Saturday, Dec. 22nd, 10am to 3pm.…
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At the Royal Bison and the Westmount CL Hall this weekend.
We will be at two locations this weekend. On Sat and Sun, Dec 1st and 2nd, Chocophilia products will be out in force at the Royal Bison Craft and Art Fair. It is just north of the Strathcona Farmer’s Market. This is a great place to look for local, handmade stuff! On Sunday, Dec 2nd,…
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Turin and Nutella Brownies
Two weeks ago, Cyrus and I went to Turin for the Slow Food Festival. While we were there, we sampled many regional Italian specialties like wine, cheese, prosciutto and a type of chocolate called Gianduja. Giaduja was invented in the mid 19th century in Turin when there was a shortage of cocoa beans. The locals…
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A visit to Kallari
My favorite part of the trip happened at the end of our tour, when we visited the Kallari cooperative in the the Amazonian rain forest. The trip began with a long but beautiful ride into the eastern part of the country. The air got thicker, the roads bumpier and the conversation deeper (it was a…
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At the Cacao Collection centers in Quevedo
On the 3rd day, we visited several collection centers around Quevedo. These centers are where farmers in the area drop off their beans and collect their money. Usually the beans are already fermented and dried, but if the farmer doesn’t have the equipment or wants money quickly, he can drop off the fresh baba. These…
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Samuel’s Cacao Farm, Quevedo, Ecuador
On day 2 of our trip, we had an early breakfast and then caught the bus to Quevedo, a city in the Los Rios region of Ecuador, and one of the top cocoa bean exporting centers in the country. After a long but picturesque 6 hour drive narrated by our excellent guide, Pablo, we arrived…
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Beginning a chocolate tour of Ecuador.
This post is being released out of chronological order. I will report on what happened in Peru and Bolivia in May and early June soon. Thanks for your patience. (Events from mid June 2012) I decided to treat myself(as if traveling around the world wasn’t a treat enough)by partaking in a chocolate tour at…
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Was your Fleur de Sel bar too salty?
To my customers and Fleur de Sel fans: If you’ve tried the Fleur de Sel bar that you purchased at a farmer’s market recently and found it to be super-salty, it’s not because I changed the recipe. It’s because I must have accidentally doubled up on the salt! Please come and see me at the…
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Chocophilia bars return to Edmonton tonight.
Here is some good news for Chocophilia lovers in Edmonton! The long wait is over. Your favorite Chocophilia bars and other Chocophilia products are once again available, fresh and delicious as ever. After shutting down the shop in April, I approached my sister, Angie, about the possibility of continuing to make the bars herself. Angie was with me in the…
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New look for our blog. What do you think?
We just upgraded our blog to the latest version of WordPress, and a new template called “Fanwood”. Also added a lightbox feature for photos (just click on a photo and use the arrow keys to see all the pictures in a post). What do you think of the new features? Any requests?
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Sapecho, a cacao town in the Alto Beni region of Bolivia.
For several years Kerstin’s Chocolates has been working with Edmonton-based charity Change for Children that helps fund projects around the world to improve the lives of children. I became interested in them because of the work they do in countries and communities where cacao is grown. Over the years, we’ve donated money and chocolate to…
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A voyage across Cuba to find cacao.
For those of you who have been following my adventures around the world for the last 8 months, you know that I have been to Europe, Africa, Asia and Mexico in search of chocolate knowledge. Despite going to all of these places, I feel like my holy grail has still eluded me. I had tasted…
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Visiting the CASFA cacao growers in Tapachula, Chiapas
The day after our tour of the Tapachula chocolate museum, we met Don Rubiel, a representative from CASFA, the biggest cooperative in the area. Don Rubiel’s job is to make the rounds at the plantations to insure that the farmers are properly fermenting the beans or pruning the trees regularly. Don Rubiel took…
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Visiting Don Isidro’s Cacao Farm in Huehuetan, Chiapas
A young boy climbs a cacao tree to pick a ripe pod for us! On Saturday we met a cacao farmer down here in Soconusco, Chiapas, named Don Isidro. He took us to meet his family and have dinner with them. The day started by meeting him at a highway gas station. Since we…
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Luis Robledo, from the Salon du Chocolat to Mexico City
Last week we visited a chocolate shop called Tout Chocolat in the Condessa neighborhood of Mexico City. It took some work to get there: dragging the kids through the busy Mexico City subway system was no fun, neither was getting turned around several times before getting the map right. We were hot, tired and disgruntled…
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Mexico City Treats
Churreria “El Morro” The first thing we did when we got to Mexico City was go for churros and hot chocolate. Mexico City is crowded and hectic and I couldn’t face it without some ammunition. El Moro is an old school Churreria that’s been around since 1934. The atmosphere is no nonsense cafeteria style with…
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The end of a chapter, but not of the story…
Dear Customers, As you probably know, Kerstin’s Chocolates has been bringing great chocolate to Edmonton for the last 8 years, and I would like to thank you, our loyal customers, for your support. I began my journey offering specialty chocolate through chocolate education workshops in 2004 and then began manufacturing my own brand of bars,…
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The Tokyo Salon du Chocolat
It’s been 8 years since I was in Japan last and have been enjoying every minute since our arrival 2 weeks ago(hence the long pause in blog postings). One of the things I was really looking forward to was getting at some good chocolate in Tokyo. All my European favorites are here including Hevin, Marcolini,…
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Marou Chocolate, bean to bar in Ho Chi Minh City
(After visiting Hoi An and Nha Trang, we headed back to Saigon for our final first true cacao encounter in Asia) Back in October we were contacted by Samuel Maruta, a chocolate maker in Vietnam, who had seen our blog. He had invited us to visit his operation in Saigon. Over e-mail we were able…
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Chocolate in Hoi An
It’s been a while since I’ve had chocolate and the bar of Beschle 64% with pistachios and salt that I purchased in Singapore was polished off weeks ago. I am in Hoi An, a picturesque but touristy town in central Vietnam which for hundreds of years served as a major port to Portuguese, Japanese and…
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Vietnam
The food in Vietnam is amazing. I don’t know how I can even begin to describe my feelings as I taste one delectable dish after another. In short, I feel like I’ve come home. It’s a strange feeling since I’ve never been here, nor have I ever really tasted proper Vietnamese food save the odd…
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Cacao and coconut
We are taking a package tour on the Mekong Delta. These tours always stop at tourist traps where they demonstrate handicraft or candy making. On our tour we stopped at a coconut taffy making workshop but to my surprise, there is cocoa growing in the surrounding plantation. Mekong River Cacao! Who knew? I asked our…
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