Last week, I went to check out the new Hershey Story: The Museum on Chocolate Avenue which replaces the old Hershey Museum.
Of course, I had to do the chocolate tasting in the building's Cafe Zooka.
For $8.95, a tasting assistant will pour you samples of six warm liquid chocolates: one each from Mexico, Ecuador, Sao Thome, Madagascar, Tanzania and Java.
Thankfully, both the assistant and the place mat on the tray beneath my samples gave me an idea of what flavors to look for in each country's cocoa beans.
How else would I have identified that bite in Mexico's chocolate as "a delicious note of licorice" or known that it was the "overtones of fruit and nuts" that kept me from liking the Madagascar chocolate?
I think my favorite was from Ecuador, with its "mild taste with an unusual oaky note." The milk chocolate from Java -- the only milk chocolate in the bunch -- was definitely the sweetest, with caramel and vanilla flavors.
I thought it was a bit pricey, but if you're a chocoholic, I'm not sure how you can pass it up. If you go and try it, let me know what you think!
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