TCHO Chocolate — Local services in Berkeley

This was interesting, but below expectations. The tour is segmented into three components: (1) sit on bleachers + listen to the tour guide talk about the company and its chocolate + watch a video, (2) go see the factory floor, though you won't actually see much of anything or learn all that much about the actual process, and (3) taste some chocolate. The first two segments are purely audio, visual, and smell. It isn't until part (3) that tactile and taste senses are brought in, unless you want to count holding a cacao pod as a tactile experience with actual chocolate. The last segment shouldn't be so isolated. Everyone knows why anyone would care to visit a chocolate tour -- they love chocolate!

This tour could be amazing by spreading the tasting component over more of the tour, but instead the tour is broken into three very distinct pieces. For example, the tour could have people try a recently developed kind of chocolate at the start to get people more immersed. I'm no saying that spreading the tasting out over the tour would be without challenges, but the challenges would be relatively minor, and making these changes could dramatically improve the experience.

This may seem odd, but a chocolate tour should be a like a (good) beer tour. I haven't been on any beer tours in SF yet, but TCHO may consider taking these tours to generate new ideas about how to make the TCHO tour better. If they make it to Boston, the Harpoon Brewery tour would provide many lessons, and implementing a better tour would also make people more interested in...

The tour is informative, they show you a decent presentation about their company, but sadly they do not show the actual process of making chocolate. The tour on the factory takes about 15 minutes and you’re just shown the boxes ( their storage) and the machines, most of which are turned off. So, their shift is over and everything is cleaned up :( I wish I had seen the whole process of making the chocolate, at least it was my expectation. Not worth a long drive, but if you are in the area, definitely check it out UPDATE: The website doesn’t provide the information that depending on the time of your appointment you actually might NOT be able to see the production and that tours are different (meaning sometimes people actually see the process of making chocolate as advertised on the website. I assume it happens during their 11am tours, as per the owner’s response). ONLY AFTER you pay for your NON-REFUNDABLE tickets do you get an email that says “elements of production may not be running during your tour”. I wish I had seen this IMPORTANT info on the website or at time of buying tickets. Why state: we’ll take you through the chocolate making process” when it’s not true if people come...

This is the first time for a chocolate tour. You do miss out on watching people who your reserve a tour on a Saturday or Sunday. Remember to reserve a spot, several people were turned away because the tour was full. We watched an informative video of how cacao is grown, harvested, and processed.

Now the tasting is the fun part. The gal was great at describing the process and what to expect what you break a piece of chocolate in half as she describes as the "snap". Then there's the taste of the chocolate based on where the cacao is grown. We talked about the taste and texture.

The store is tiny, but they have lots of goodies in different sizes. I picked up some of the "art" packaged bars which make really nice gifts. My co-workers really enjoyed what...