Seattlest Goes To Chocolate School At Chocolopolis (Part 2)

Back in 2008, we promised a longer report on Chocolopolis, a Queen Anne store devoted to artisan chocolate. The store might intimidate some chocolate lovers, even in a town obsessed with food politics, where Theo Chocolate tours regularly fill up weeks in advance.

And when we first visited a tasting class at Chocolopolis, we weren’t sure what to expect. The employees were dressed in (yes) chocolate brown chef jackets. The store first struck us as a makeup counter, with pristine white shelves, prim rows of boxes and bars, and cool track lighting. The store’s selection, shelved by geography, was impressive almost to the point of overwhelming. Fancy labels, flavor profiles, descriptions of single-origin chocolate, backlit pictures of cacao beans: chocolate?

For a second we were tempted to pick a bar of chocolate, any bar, using our old wine-shopping strategy (pick the fancy label!), and sneak out. But there were only four other students. There was nowhere to hide.

“Please, have a seat,” offered Lauren Adler, the store’s owner.

While Adler and her staff are clearly passionate and knowledgeable about their products, they make every effort to welcome curious chocolate fans to the store. “Hey,” she smiled, “I was a lifelong eater of Hershey’s milk chocolate. And if you love that kind of chocolate, that’s fine. I don’t want to force you to change; I just want to introduce you to other kinds of chocolate that you might like.” During the classes, Adler offers plenty of visual and gustatory aids: pictures of cacao beans from chocolate books for students to peruse, a cacao pod for them to gently shake, small jars of cacao nibs to taste, and of course squares of several kinds of chocolate, from darker to lighter offerings. Visitors to the tasting class might look at them as complementary to the popular Theo Chocolate tours. As Adler points out, “Theo’s tour will give you a deeper look at bean-to-bar production, while we’re going to cover broader global issues of production here.” Those who might be less interested in chocolate, but more interested in issues of food justice and production, might also find Adler an interesting conversation partner.

Studying the shelves at the end of class, we weren’t sure if we’d be able to afford any bars of chocolate to take home, but there are affordable bars of Guittard chocolate ($4) as well as single-origin Original Beans Beni Wild Harvest chocolate ($8.99), a bar that we’d tasted and loved during the class. Unable to resist the punk colors and hot sauce spicy promise of Lilliebelle Farms’s “Do Not Eat This Chocolate” bar, we picked it up for our friend Josh. He opened it eagerly and took a nibble. The smile left his face; his eyes widened. “Is it spicy? Is it spicy?” we asked. He started laughing, nearly breathless. “Yeah,” he said, quickly pouring himself a glass of water. “It’s spicy. I’ll have to spread it out over time.” A glass of red wine cooled down his palate, and he was back at it again after a few minutes.

As for us, we contented ourselves with the dregs of the salted caramel drinking chocolate that we’d saved from class, the house-made Chocolopolis Madagascar truffle, and the promise of returning another day.

Signups for the Chocolopolis tasting classes are available online. Space is limited. The store also offers other community events with chocolatiers, “serious chocolate talks” about the politics of chocolate production, Golden Ticket contests, and tasting events such as Bastille Day. You can catch the last of this month's free anniversary events this week.