kerstin
I am the founder of Kerstin's Chocolates, and a chocolate fanatic.
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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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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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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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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 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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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 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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Tea tasting in Malaysia
We are currently in Malaysia now after spending a magical week on the island of Koh Lanta in Thailand. Today we stopped in Ipoh which is a city about 2 hours north of Kuala Lumpur. The city is near some hot springs, which we swam in, but it is also one to some great culinary…
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Finding chocolate in Bangkok
[After taking a long flight across the Indian Ocean, Kerstin arrives in Bangkok, Thailand!] I had read about a certain chocolate buffet that takes place on the weekends at the Sukothai Hotel in Bangkok. I knew it was going to be nice because it was billed as a champagne and chocolate buffet. I decided that…
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Two Chocolate companies in Madagascar
If there is one thing that I have learned while being in Madagascar, it’s that there isn’t much of a chocolate culture in Madagascar. Cocoa was introduced in the 1920′s by the French so there is no history of native chocolate preparations. If people consume cocoa, they either eat it fresh from the pod or…
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Visiting the SOMIA plantation in Ambanja.
The day after we visited the family farm and the coop, we got a special tour of one of the biggest cocoa plantations in Madagascar, the Somia plantation. Somia is run by Bertile’s Akkeson’s family (Bertile is the man we had lunch with on the beach on at Nosy Be) and supplies beans to some of…
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Meeting the people who grow the cacao for Madecasse.
Madagascar grows some of the best cocoa in the world and Ambanja is where it all comes from. It’s on the northwest part of the island and we went there on Sunday to visit a few plantations. Two technicians from the American chocolate company Madecasse took us to two farms and explained the harvesting, fermenting…
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A serendipitous meeting with some chocolate makers on Nosy Be
After visiting Chocolat Bonnat in Voiron, France, we made our way back to Paris and boarded a flight for Madagascar. It was a long flight (about 10 hours), and we arrived in the airport in capital of Antananarivo, nicknamed Tana, at midnight! After waiting in immigration for an hour for our visas to be issued,…
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Meeting Stephane Bonnat
[This post was from early November 2011, but was delayed due to difficulty from posting from Madagascar, which has unreliable power and internet services! Stay tuned for the Madagascar reports coming soon.] We all drove up in the alps to a place called Voiron which is the home of Stephane Bonnat and the House of…
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Leaving for Madagascar
We are on board our air France flight and we are heading to Madagascar. We will blog again as soon as we can!
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