Supplied
Wellington Chocolate Factory have relaunched their public tours of the factory.
My top tip if you’re taking a tour of the Wellington Chocolate Factory? Skip breakfast. And lunch.
I’m booked in for the 10.30am tour, and I’ve barely walked in the door before I’m welcomed with a hot chocolate – which is less a beverage and more a thick, silky, super-rich liquid version of their Peru bar.
It’s not long before I’m nibbling on cacao nibs. Then I’m offered a spoonful of coffee-flavoured milk chocolate, straight from the churning machinery. A tray of chocolate chip cookies is passed around before we get to the “official” tasting session – a sampling of four different types of chocolate, broken up into bite-sized morsels and presented in little bowls with tongs.
“Help yourself to as much as you want,” our guide Jess says, before letting us choose a full-size bar of chocolate to take home.
READ MORE:
* Try something new: The best new things to do in Wellington
* Nowhere beats Wellington, even on a bad day
* Where to find the freshest craft beers in Wellington
I can’t help but recall the time I took a tour of a certain chocolate factory in New Zealand (hint: it’s now defunct), and left with a handful of mini chocolate bars and a few unwelcome splashes of chocolate on my clothes from the gimmicky “chocolate waterfall” (another hint for you there).
Siobhan Downes/Stuff
Wellington Chocolate Factory is located in the foodie laneway that is Eva Street.
The experience at this gem of a craft chocolate factory, hidden down a laneway in central Wellington, couldn’t be more different. Established in 2013, Wellington Chocolate Factory is New Zealand’s first bean-to-bar factory, which means all of their chocolate is made from scratch, starting with the cacao bean.
Jess explains how they source these beans as ethically and sustainably as possible, importing beans from Peru, Dominican Republic and the Pacific Islands. She shows us a cacao pod, which contains the beans. It’s wild to think chocolate comes from such a funny-looking fruit.
Siobhan Downes/Stuff
Come hungry – there is plenty of chocolate to be sampled.
Once the beans arrive in Wellington, they are sorted by hand and roasted in small batches. Then the beans are ground down into nibs, which you can eat raw – in fact, Jess tells us, they’re a powerful superfood, with aphrodisiac qualities.
You can see the refining machines at work all over the factory, mixing the nibs with other ingredients to form a smooth liquid chocolate. Each refiner produces about 40 kilograms of chocolate, or 500 bars. At the moment, the factory is working hard to produce up to 5000 bars a week.
Siobhan Downes/Stuff
Tour guide Jess takes some chocolate straight from a refiner for the group to sample.
The chocolate then goes through a tempering machine, which means it is heated and cooled to give it glossiness, and a good snap. Finally, it’s poured into bar moulds to set, before being wrapped by hand in beautiful wrappers designed by local artists.
You won’t uncover any big behind-the-scenes secrets on this tour – because there aren’t really any. Wellington Chocolate Factory strives to be completely transparent about its ingredients and process, and it’s possible wander in and have a look around at everything without taking a tour (it’s worth visiting just to have a hot chocolate from the excellent cafe).
Supplied
The cafe at Wellington Chocolate Factory is worth visiting even without the tour.
But the tour offers a bit more of the backstory of this gem of a business, and shows you how much of a labour of love chocolate making can be. At $30, it’s also great value for money, considering a single bar of their premium chocolate costs $10.
Be sure to come with flavour ideas – feedback and suggestions are taken seriously here, and you might just find your dream creation in bar form the next time you visit.
Details:
Wellington Chocolate Factory’s Discover The Art Of Chocolate Making tours run most Saturdays at 10.30am, 1.30pm, and 3pm, and cost $30. Bookings required. Visit wcf.co.nz/tours for more information.
