Last weekend, we headed up to Berkeley to take the tour at the Scharffen Berger chocolate factory. We learned about it watching Bay Area Backroads. It was actually pretty educational and we got to taste various states of chocolate ingredients and qualities of chocolate. Some of them were pretty nasty. I expected to be more touring of the chocolate factory, but it was actually pretty small and so noisy we had to wear ear protection. We spent 45 minutes getting the history of chocolate from the over-enthusastic tourguide.
Overall, I thought the Jelly Belly factory tour was much better. It was a lot more interesting and they have lots of jelly bean art and neat candy-making videos, not to mention the discount jelly beans at the end. I think I’ve been there 5 times now with various combinations of visiting relatives and friends.
Speaking of the Chocolate Factory, apparently Tim Burton is remaking the classic movie. Tim Burton seems a little too “dark” to do a musical for kids, but I guess it’ll be interesting.
Scharffen Berger may in fact be the best chocolates made today, but on their website, the prices are pretty high. You should try other places to buy their chocolates; they are much cheaper. A good place that will even give you discount prices per case is http://www.wolrldsfoods.com. I use them all the time and they have some other things.
Have you ever tried Schaffen Berger baking chocolate melted with some apple slices dipped in? It is very good indeed!