CHOCOVERSUM - Hamburgs Schokoladenmuseum — Attraction in Hamburg

A unique experience to follow the cacao bean from plant to bar, with about 8 tastings along the way plus a make your own chocolate bar station. I would say this is more of a chocolate production simulated factory tour, not a museum as there are no signs or info boards anywhere. The tour was fine, if not a bit long (90 minutes), considering there was a lot of standing. Sometimes it was difficult to hear or see due to the number of people (up to 40 people per group plus kids under 5). General suggestions:

1. 40+ people is too much in a single tour, but we did come on a holiday weekend so that could explain the overcrowding.
2. for the time, there wasn’t THAT much detailed information presented. For example, we were shown the original size of chocolate bars in the 1930’s, and were told to mentally compare that to the size they are today. The guide could have listed factors such as ease of import, increased demand, decrease of production costs, etc for the growing size nowadays.
3. this would have been a perfect opportunity to talk about how climate change would affect the cacao plant and, subsequently, impact the chocolate industry, but nothing was mentioned.
4. the chocolate-bar-making activity could have used coarse salt instead of table salt, as well as some more gourmet toppings, like dried citrus peel, candied ginger, etc. (such as what one can buy from Hachez) instead of granola and more chocolate chips.

Buggies and wheelchairs are welcome. You can guy your tickets online in advance and get a better price the earlier you purchase them. Good rainy day activity but not really a “must do” in Hamburg...

We booked the English tour. Our guide Mandy was very nice and helpful. The tour lasts 90 minutes, and you can try chocolate in several forms until the finished product, which was pretty nice. But the groups are pretty big, so most of the time was spent distributing and waiting for everyone to get their piece of chocolate.

Also, this isn't so much a museum, because there is not a lot to see, and the information presented is pretty basic, it seems more directed towards children maybe, even though there was only a handful of kids in our group.

Also, I had high expectations to make my own chocolate bar, but that just consists on putting some toppings on some melted chocolate they give you, which is something you easily can do at home.

My suggestions to make it better would be have more in depth information for adults, maybe even have some adult only groups.

Also, maybe when we were to taste the samples it could be done in a way that the guide doesn't need to personally give the samples to everyone, which would make the tour much more interesting without most of the time in those activities.

I also wish there were more samples of different kinds of chocolate.

I'd say it's worth going because it's interesting to taste the chocolate throughout the whole process and have an overview of the steps involved. But if you want detailed information about the process or history I don't think it's a good place, especially because it's...

A very good experience overall - all the staff were friendly and helpful throughout and the chocolate was delicious! We arrived just too late to join the English-speaking tour, but they offered us a comprehensive and clear guide for us if we wanted to join the next tour in German instead of wait another 45-60 minutes for the next English tour. During the tour, we learned about he chocolate making process, made our own chocolate bars, sampled chocolate on several occasions, then got to collect our decorated bar and put it in packaging at the end. The staff saw that my 6yr-old son was not quite enjoying just looking at the guide book after making his chocolate bar, so they stepped in and let us join the English group in front, which was above and beyond! The only thing stopping me giving full ratings is the lack of proper ventilation, especially during the particularly hot summer weather and being a chocolate factory! There were a couple of fans, but they did need more in order to keep visitors comfortable during the 90...