WORKSHOPS & EVENTS
Our mission is to make craft chocolate more accessible and get people familiar with the process of making chocolate and tasting craft chocolate.
Similar to craft coffee, craft beer and natural wine, chocolate is based on terroir, skills and processes that are refined based on personal taste and experience. Similar to wine, bean-to-bar chocolates are all delicious in their own way and deserve to be appreciated.
Chocolate Tasting & Pairing
These workshops are all about flavours!
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In these workshops, we look at chocolate making from a tasting perspective where you will taste chocolates in different ways depending on the focus of the workshop.
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Factory Tour & Tasting
Thanks to Willie Wonka, visiting a chocolate factory is a shared dream across three generations. In this tour, participants will walk through the process of chocolate making together with Amit, sample teaspoons of fresh chocolate right out of the chocolate grinders in different stages, and potentially see ongoing experiments. We will discuss the art and science of chocolate making and how the different stages play a unique role in the defining the experience of fine chocolate. The second half of the tour is a chocolate tasting covering the different ways cacao can become chocolate and a range of chocolate flavours. In this we will taste and discuss the way chocolate’s flavour is affected by fermentation, drying, roasting, stone grinding, ageing, and lastly the different products that can be made from chocolate with different flavours.
Duration: 1 hour
Location: The Chocolate Lab
Sustainability
What is the impact of cacao on the people who grow it and those who trade it, and the natural ecosystem? What can consumers do about it? This workshop consists of learning, discussion, and tasting, to consider cacao’s global impact, learn how to become an environmentally conscious chocolate consumer. In this event we cover a broad range of topics including the business models available to cacao farmers in different economies, the challenges in scaling a business in these economies, the businesses of cacao trading and chocolate production, environmental and human implications, these models’ impact on the chocolate’s eventual properties, and the options for future cacao growers and chocolate makers and lovers for carrying on with this human-plant relationship responsibly.
Duration: 2 hours
Location: The Chocolate Lab | other venue
Themed Chocolate Tasting
Conspiracy’s chocolate tastings are a window into a chocolate maker’s point of view. The bean-to-bar tasting aims to showcase the chocolate making process through tasting different chocolates. Every chocolate represents a stage in the process,from the farm to the lab. Participants learn about chocolate making, as well as the art of tasting chocolate, similar to wine tasting etiquette. Another example for a theme for a tasting could be a type of inclusion, for example tea lovers enjoy the chocolate tasting including different teas. By controlling the medium as a fat-soluble flavour (chocolate) the teas take on a new personality and can be enjoyed from a different angle than when steeped in water. These workshops can be adjusted to be more casual or mode guided, can take on a light or an educational approach, making them fit for the occasion.
Duration: 1.5-2 hour
Location: The Chocolate Lab | other venue
Chocolate Pairings
Good chocolate should have a wide range of flavours it can pair with, especially fermented flavours such as wine, sake, cheese, tea, coffee, whisky, cigar, cocktails, kombucha, beer, or even some fruits. The reason for this is that well cultivated cacao is, molecularly speaking, more complex in flavour than red wine and thus offers a range of different tasting notes to match, contrast, or enhance other flavours. Our culinary team is passionate about tea, and different members have particular specialisations such as Zarah’s certification as a sake sommelier. We enjoy both a classical pairing like red wine and a challenging one like beer as different dance partners for chocolate. Whether you are a maker or a chef, a passionate connoisseur, a curious foodie or someone interested in trying something new, you will likely enjoy our pairing events. These events, similar to the chocolate tasting, could be an intimate chat around a table or as broad as the opener to a networking event that becomes a conversation starter.
Duration: 45 min - 2 hours
Location: The Chocolate Lab | other venue
Chocolate Making Workshops
These workshops are hands-on and let you understand chocolate to a deeper level.
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We will look at the chocolate making process and make some chocolate creations.
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Bean-to-Bar Workshop
Conspiracy’s Bean-to-Bar workshop is an in-depth hands-on experience covering the entire process of chocolate making. Bean-to-Bar chocolate making is a fascinating, deep culinary craft with rich history and science. Once familiar with these concepts, a maker can get playful and creative with their chocolate. In this 2 hour workshop we compressed the art of chocolate making in a fun interactive session, covering history, theory and practical hands-on work transforming cacao beans to a chocolate bar. Every participant will make and temper their own 4 chocolate bars, decorated with toppings of their choice, to take home. After taking this workshop, participants will have sufficient understanding of the process and the flavour development to be able to make their own chocolate from fermented dried cacao beans at home.
Duration: 2 hours
Location: The Chocolate Lab
Truffles Workshop
Conspiracy’s Truffle Making workshop is the perfect combination of hands-on chocolate work without long technical explanation. While no prior culinary experience is required, you will be making a gourmet chocolatier product by hand and learn how to do it yourself later at home. In the truffle making workshop we learn the basics of ganache, a foundational building block of chocolatier skills, and make chocolate truffles from scratch, either classic or vegan. Once a ganache is made, participants will learn how to hand-roll truffles, and with a range of different toppings will make 8 of their own truffles to take home and share with friends. These truffles make a luxurious gift or a very nice snack.
Duration: 1.5 hours
Location: The Chocolate Lab | other venue
Kids workshop
Kids workshop are hands-on and educative and are the perfect way to celebrate a birthday or an event. This workshop is a truffle making worshop designed for kids, with some fun anecdote about chocolate and plenty of activity from making the ganache to preparing the box to set the truffles and of course to rolling truffles and creating flavours.
Duration: 1-1.5 hours
Location: The Chocolate Lab | other venue
Holiday Special
Good chocolate should have a wide range of flavours it can pair with, especially fermented flavours such as wine, sake, cheese, tea, coffee, whisky, cigar, cocktails, kombucha, beer, or even some fruits. The reason for this is that well cultivated cacao is, molecularly speaking, more complex in flavour than red wine and thus offers a range of different tasting notes to match, contrast, or enhance other flavours. Our culinary team is passionate about tea, and different members have particular specialisations such as Zarah’s certification as a sake sommelier. We enjoy both a classical pairing like red wine and a challenging one like beer as different dance partners for chocolate. Whether you are a maker or a chef, a passionate connoisseur, a curious foodie or someone interested in trying something new, you will likely enjoy our pairing events. These events, similar to the chocolate tasting, could be an intimate chat around a table or as broad as the opener to a networking event that becomes a conversation starter.
Duration: 1.5 hours
Location: The Chocolate Lab
Past Events
