Cadbury be damned – The Chocolate tour of Melbourne

I love chocolate. I love eating it, I love cooking with it, I love browsing for it in shops, I even love talking about it. Honestly I didn’t have all that much to say about the last election, but I could have earnest, impassioned discussions for hours on which flavour in the Cadbury Snack bar is the most dispensable (coconut ice, obviously).  I am probably the only person who wasn’t freaked out as a child by the fate of Augustus Gloop in the Willy Wonka movies. Swept away by a river of chocolate with a jaunty song written about you to boot?? Where does one sign up for that as demise of choice?

What. A. Way. To. Go.

So naturally, when I see that Foodi are running Chocolate Tours in Melbourne, it’s a fait accompli that I’m signing up. I don’t think I’ve ever typed my credit card details into a web browser quite so furiously. You can find all the information on Foodi tours at their website here.

Foodi Tours

Now, I like to think I know a bit about chocolate. I eat it every day, and I know that Lindt, for example is better than, say, a Freddo Frog. Because Lindt is made in Switzerland and the Swiss are famous for two things–chocolate, and very accurate watches. Presumably so that they can reliably measure the time that has lapsed since they last ate chocolate. Little do I know I’m about to discover that Lindt is like a slightly fancier cask wine. It’s still goon, but with some airs and graces #illusionsshattered

My partner in crime for this tour, reprising her acclaimed role as blog-complice in the Desserts Tour of Melbourne, is my comedy buddy Nadine.

Bow down to the Dessert Qweens

The tour kicks off at 10am sharp, at the beautiful Royal Arcade in Bourke St.

Our guide for the morning is the impossibly bubbly Christina. She’s absolutely delightful, informative, patient, and–encouragingly, really slender. Is eating excellent chocolate the game changing secret to looking better in skinny jeans?! *tosses away kale smoothie

She issues us all with lanyards that will score us discounts and free samples (yesssssss) and gives us a brief history of chocolate. Do we know where it comes from? I’m about to say yes, I’ve seen that Ferrero Rocher documentary (some call it a ‘TV advertisement’). Chocolate was once only eaten by gods in heaven but one day one of them clumsily dropped one down to us mortals here on earth and that’s how chocolate was discovered and Ferreros were appropriated by mankind as the perfect impersonal, roughly $10 value gift to give someone you hardly care about.History.

Turns out the correct answer is a plant, and Christina has even bought a cacao pod from Ecuador to show us and pass around.  I’m tempted to cradle it like a newborn for a photo but we have only just met the rest of the group and I don’t want to come across as weird, so I just cradle it tenderly in the palm of my hand instead.

If I had a mating call it would be ‘Cacao! Cacao! Cacao!’

First stop on the Chocolate Express is a little shop named Chokolait, down a quiet arcade off Little Collins Street.

Spell it any way you like, just get it in my mouth

We’re greeted by a lady bearing a tray of roughly 16 different chocolate delicacies. She walks us through what they all are one by one and then invites us to help ourselves. Everybody hesitates politely and because my mother bought me up right, I override my primal instinct, which is  to yell “every man for himselves!!” and hip and shoulder everyone else aside to get the raspberry heart I’ve been eyeing off. I get it anyway. We all make our selection and what follows is fifteen strangers all standing in clusters making low moans and murmuring “oh God, that’s good”  It’s not weird AT ALL.

I decide from the outset to start as I mean to go on, and make my first purchase 🙂

It begins….

Next stop Ganache where we get a free hot chocolate: six parts couverture chocolate, one part cream (cue more pleasure moans) and an exquisite passionfruit chocolate.

Pure decadence in a cup.

Nadine has eaten a passionfruit chocolate at Chokolait and I ask her which she prefers. She responds with the grave diplomacy of a parent who’s been asked if they have a favourite child. She loves them both, for different reasons.

Both of us agree that we’re inclined to really savour the chocolates we’ve tasted so far, and that they’re quite rich. We can already see how eating the good stuff leaves you satisfied with a small amount, unlike eating Dairy Milk, where you smash three rows and could still easily go another. Turns out this is because the good stuff has a higher percentage of cocoa butter than the likes of Cadbury and even Lindt. They cut theirs with vegetable fats and sugars. Boooooo.

Anyway, enough theory. Back to the practical….

The next pitstop has both chocolate AND mulled wine tasting on offer. Given it’s Winter, and almost 11am, we all agree it’d be rude not to, and sample some of each. Purely for the antioxidants. The mulled wine is absolutely delicious and Nadine and I both depart the store with still more chocolate, and the spice mix to recreate the mulled wine at home

Winter Survival Kit

Then it’s on to the next chocolatier where we’re given samples of their Leatherwood Honey chocolates and their Caffe Latte varieties. There’s a moment of near hysteria when we go to the counter and I can’t sight the Leatherwood Honey ones, because I’ve fallen completely in love with them. WHY WOULD THEY LET US TASTE IT IF WE CAN’T BUY IT? I lament hysterically at the counter, before the assistant calmly points out that they’re ‘just over here.’ I let go of Nadine’s jacket lapels, take a deep breath and make my purchase.

Then it’s onto the next stop, where we are treated to free waffles with chocolate sauce and a round two hot chocolate.

Stomach approaching capacity

I confess in hushed tones to Nadine that I’m actually getting really full and I’m not sure how much more I can fit in, and she whispers back that she’s feeling much the same. Fortunately the next stop is the last one, where we sample chocolate covered pretzels (bought!) and chocolate covered raspberries.

Here’s my loot for the morning–not bad at all….

Bags and blocks!

And individual delights…. Clockwise starting with the pink heart we have raspberry filled white chocolate, passionfruit heart, Kalamansi lime chocolate, Leatherwood honey chocolate, chai tea chocolate, rose jelly, Melbourne honey, and the tram adorned cafe latte choc!

New Diet Craze.

We had a gorgeous morning wandering through Melbourne laneways, sampling and supping and I’d highly recommend the Chocolate Walking tour but as always, Jarrod, I’m throwing it over to you. The Foodi Chocolate Walking Tour: Jarrod, would you go there?

Serotonin streaming