Bean-to-bar Chocolate Workshop Reviews

4.9 Rating 38 Reviews

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This is a fun activity in Notting Hill, London

As recommended in The Sunday Times, The New York Times and CNN:

“The best way to experience the power and pleasure of chocolate is to taste its history.”
” Crafting bonbons or chocolate bars is not just a sweet treat, but it’s like weaving my affections and memories into each delicate piece.”

Join the experienced Chocolate Melt team for an insight into the wonderful process of making a chocolate bar from a cocoa bean. Your teacher, Natalie, will guide you through the magical transformation, weaving in plenty of fascinating history of chocolate and some yummy tastings.

You'll find this amazing chocolate-making class nestled in the heart of Notting Hill. Taste sublime samplings and learn everything there is to know about this incredible sweet treat.

Embark on a delicious adventure through time that will take you through key turning points in the evolution of chocolate, from the Aztecs' raw cocoa to the modern-day chocolate we all know and love. In this one-of-a-kind experience, you'll focus on what is described as the greatest event in history— the discovery of chocolate!

This class will discuss how chocolate was used as an aphrodisiac in 17th Century Venice by Casanova, its raw use with chilli and vanilla, and its elevation to sophistication in the Courts of Europe.

Melt Chocolate's knowledgeable chocolatiers will guide you through the rich history of chocolate and its impact on society, making this experience both informative and delicious. You'll properly taste the chocolate and make a bar yourself.

In this chocolate-making class in London, you will:
- Learn how to sort and roast cocoa beans.
- Crack and winnow the beans to prepare them for grinding.
- Taste the chocolate at each stage to see how flavour notes appear throughout the journey, creating an exciting sensory experience.
- Using your ground beans to make a bar of chocolate.

Please note:
- This experience is suitable for vegans.
- Please arrive 5 minutes before the experience. If you are more than 15 minutes late, your experience will be rescheduled.

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Michelle Brownlee

Verified Reviewer

“Thoroughly recommend. Paul is an exceptional presenter, welcoming, well spoken and clearly enjoys his craft. Guiding us through a history and steps for bean to bar production, whilst encouraging all to sample and take turns in basic processes. It was fun to pick our flavour/decorations and pipe the melted chocolate into 3 bar molds. Paul's instructions where clear, easy to follow, even down to wrapping our bars after. While waiting to set we got to sample a lot of single origin chocolate from different countries. I really enjoyed the different flavour profiles. Paul did check with group during the session if we were all ok to over run a little. I think with a full group you may over run so I would allow extra time if you are booking a meal or activities following. My son said he would give Paul a 6 star rating if he could and was extremely happy with his finished bars”

Helpful Report

Posted 2 months ago

Lee Ker Peng

Verified Reviewer

“Thank you, Paul, for an insightful and enjoyable chocolate workshop. The demonstration on tempering chocolate - tabliering was excellent, and I loved sampling the wide range of chocolates, from dark and milk to white and ruby. It was great fun creating our own milk and dark chocolates with the variety of ingredients available.”

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Posted 2 months ago

Caroline Sanders

Verified Reviewer

“Great fun and interesting to tske part in the chocolate making process! It was fascinating to hear about the history of chocolate and the geographical spread of the different countries and type of cacoa beans.Lots of chocolate samples to try too. We decorated and then poured in the tempered chocolate,piping patterns and words onto the bars before cooling them.Lovely to choose the packaging and turn our efforts into quite professional-looking bars of chocolate.Definitely recommended, thanks Melt!”

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Posted 2 months ago

Sheila Kelley

Verified Reviewer

“Yum! Yum! Yum! what a super fun way to spend an hour and a half on a rainy afternoon. Try the philippine chocolate, my favorite!”

Helpful Report

Posted 3 months ago

“We had a very enjoyable experience, however, for the price of the course there was a signifcant flaw for us. The activities we engaged in were: 1) a powerpoint presentation on chocolate, 2) physically extracting a cacao nibs from the roasted seed and tasting this, 3) seeing the nibs get crushed in a pestal and mortar and briefly engaging with this ourselves, 4) tasting the paste, 5) getting to set milk and dark chocoloate into a mould with our own choice of toppings, 6) tasting various chocolates from around the world. This was nice. The sad part was that the level of english of the instructor, in our opinion, was not good enough to host a session like this. As a result we struggled to follow along with a lot of the information that was given. They used words which we had to guess what they meant or were not explained (e.g., "tampering" chocolate - I assume tempering was meant and when we asked to clarify what it meant we did not understand the explanation, the beans were said to be "drawn" multiple times - we assumed she meant dried?). We did have to ask alot of clarifying questions, but eventually we felt rude in trying to understand some of her english so we just nodded along. She was very welcoming and hospitable, but for the cost I want to be able to clearly understand the instructor and feel like I've learnt something. I would still recommend the workshop but be aware that depending on the instructor you may understand more or less.”