My husband and I have been taking more online classes when we can, and last night we participated in a Virtual Chocolate Tasting Class (!!) as a little at-home date night. Long story short: we ate A LOT of high-quality chocolate. It was amazing. Here are the details.
We did our class through Theo Chocolate, which is a chocolate factory in Seattle. Their chocolate is organic, fair trade, and made from scratch. They make some damn-good chocolate—and since they mail you a box of chocolate and conduct the class over Zoom, you don’t have to be a local to participate!
Here’s the box that comes in the mail. Cute sticker, fancy packaging. Definitely felt like date night.
Here are the chocolates in the box! We got a great mix of dark and not-so-dark chocolate. And the little bag on the right is PURE cacao nibs so we could taste the chocolate in raw form and compare it to the bars!
Before the tasting began, we got some background information on chocolate in general, as well as how Theo Chocolates makes their chocolate. Here’s a little screenshot from our Zoom. Our tour guides were so knowledgable and made the learning process really fun!
After the information period came the tasting! We were walked through all the bars: how they’re made, what dictates the chocolate’s percentage, and how Theo gets experimental.
My favorite? I love a good dark chocolate (I usually eat 85% or above). That said, the 70% sea salt bar was really, really good. And I’m a sucker for peanut butter cups, so their PB&J cups were definitely a treat.
All in all, this was a super fun way to spend an evening.
Details: This virtual class is $35 with everything included. They mail you the box pictured above, and you have to practice self-control to not open it (or eat any chocolate!) until you’re on the Zoom call. The class itself lasted about an hour, then we hung around for a Q&A period. We were on camera along with all the other class guests. I wasn’t sure about this at first (introvert), but it really made it feel like an in-person tour. Bonus: people showed us their cats and dogs afterward, which was really lovely. This class was family friendly and your whole quarantine household can participate (if you’re willing to share the chocolate).
Here’s the link so you can do it yourself! And if a class isn’t your thing, you can also buy these bars — and many more flavors— on their website and in select stores! We may or may not have bought about $40 in other flavors online after the Zoom call.