I have been in Cologne, Germany for a week, for a gaming event that I am attending for work. Normally, these events take a lot out of me. Even this year, Gamescom has taken a lot out of me, however, I went with my brother. Going to Gamescom with my brother meant shorter days at the venue, as his feet hurt and I didn’t want to overwork him. In a lot of ways, this was amazing for me, even if my legs are still sore and my feet hurt after medium sized days walking across a maze of a show floor. Going with my brother also meant site seeing, like going to the Lindt Chocolate Museum with him and Dann.
Inside the Chocolate Museum
The Chocolate Museum is what you’d expect – a huge museum and factory of chocolate goods that are produced by Lindt. When entering the Chocolate Museum, you are shown a lot of information on the process of creating chocolate from cocoa beans. Countries that export these goods, how they are harvested and information about the plants themselves are dotted around, to give you a better understanding of chocolate. There are a few interactive screens and devices dotted around – one that you can roll a wheel to watch a cocoa tree grow, another where you must push on a metal hand in hopes of understanding how hard they compact the chocolate.
Once you are done with those, you can walk out into a small garden, which contains a cocoa tree and various other plants. This room is very warm! There is an option to go to an area above the garden, if you are on the next floor. As you continue around, you’ll find metal chocolate molds everywhere you look. There really is a lot to see in the Chocolate Museum as chocolate has been around for ages and made into many shapes.
Creating our own chocolate bars
Rooms full of machines used to make chocolate and melt chocolate decorate a floor. One spinning machine caught my attention, as it was spreading chocolate out around a mold. Chocolate models of birds dotted an area – others showcased the tin foil wrapping you can find on holiday themed chocolate. We made our own chocolate bars by picking the ingredient that would go in. Then, you can watch it be made from behind some glass, seeing individuals put in the right amount of each ingredient. We were tempted to book the tour, which would allow us to make the chocolate bars we wanted, but we were unsure if it would be in English.
While our chocolate bars were cooling, we moved to another floor of the Chocolate Museum, focused on chocolate’s culture. This area talked about different areas of the world and their relationship to chocolate, including little booths that spoke to you in English and German about various aspects of chocolates. One sign talked about the significance of chocolate in cities and attempts at growing chocolate that failed. For a long time, chocolate was a luxury that really wasn’t for common people.
We moved into an area that had loads of fancy dishes to server chocolate and hot cocoa in, followed by some of the sign age and an old school chocolate store. This museum really covered everything. Going towards more modern day chocolate, we were able to take a look at various types of chocolate bars and see loads of prizes that one could find in a kinder egg.
Tasting Chocolate
I should also mention the chocolate fountain and the amount of chocolate we got to taste test. There were chocolate dipped wafers with the most decadent chocolate I have ever tasted handed to me from the chocolate fountain. A robot on a machine handed me a piece of chocolate from a convener belt, while the rest were whisked away to be packaged for sale. When entering, we all received a chocolate to eat at the start and a small bundle to eat at the end. There was just a lot to taste test – each delicious in it’s own right.
The Chocolate Museum is one that smells delicious, is fun to explore and is really a great time. After we were done in the museum, we went to the cafe right inside by the entrance, where we enjoyed hot chocolates and cakes. My brother and I opted for the cherry hot chocolate, which was indeed the best hot chocolate either of us had ever had. The cherry flavor was not over powering and matched so well with the creamy and almost dense chocolate you could taste. We went with a chocolate mousse cake and a raspberry cheese cake, with the raspberry being the favorite of the table. After all that chocolate, a chocolate mousse was just too much! Both were of wonderful quality and well worth the price.
I’d go back to the Chocolate Museum next year – even just to taste some of the delicious treats from the cafe. You can check out the other things we did in Cologne, Germany on my previous blog post.
You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!