Beast Blog

Fun Stuff in the Beast: Scharffen Berger Chocolate Factory

This is the first in what I hope is a series of Fun Stuff in the Beast posts, activities to get you out of the house and enjoying what the area has to offer.

Yesterday, a bunch of friends went to the Scharffen Berger Chocolate Factory for a tasting and a tour. Tours are everyday at 10:30, 2:30, and 3:30.

The entrance. Which also lets you know the address.

The tasting room.

The bulk of the tour takes place in the tasting room, where our guide taught us about the harvesting and production of cacao, and then the manufacture of chocolate at the factory. This was interspersed with free handouts of their milk, semi-sweet, and bittersweet bars, as well as a dip of their chocolate sauce. All very tasty.

We then walked through the factory.

First you see the roaster:

In front of the roaster was this charmingly non-modern desk set-up:

No laptop. No ethernet. Not even a phone!

Everything in the roasting room is covered in fine brown powder.
(Ibex is the animal in the Scharffen Berger logo:

Then you move to the next room, where the chocolate is actually made.

Everyone's favorite machine is the melangeur:

Chocolate goo!

Ever wonder what's in a big tub of cocoa butter? Now you know:

The tour ends in the gift shop (naturally), where everyone is quite primed to spend obscene amounts of money of all manner of confection. I neglected to photograph the gift shop, though.