Fresh-Picked Seattle

Theo Chocolates via Flickr by XMattToday is National Chocolate Day.  To Seattleites, this is amateur hour.  

With the number of chocolate shops and chocolatiers, and the only organic, Fair Trade bean-to-bar factory in the US (Theo Chocolate), we don't need to wait for a special occasion to appreciate chocolate.  Honestly, you really can't wait for a single day. There wouldn't be enough hours in it to even get started.  

Simply buying and eating it is probably enough for most people, but if you want to know more about this magical substance, here are some of the chocolate resources and events we have here in town. 

Also click through for a slideshow of the Theo Chocolate Factory tour.

Chocolate Shops & Chocolatiers

Not a complete list, but a starting point for some of the popular ones:

• Claudio Corallo
• Seattle Chocolates
• Dilettante
• Dr. Dave's Mega-O
• Chocolopolis
• Oh! Chocolate
• Suess Chocolates
• Intrigue Chocolate
• Sweet Decadence (in Newcastle, was voted best of Western WA for 2009)
  Fran's (famous sea salt caramels Obama likes)
• Theo Chocolate (per the above, the only organic and Fair Trade certified bean-to-bar manufacturer in the US, see the tour slideshow)

Chocolate Tours

• Chocolate Box offers a 3-hour tour for $65 at 8:30am every Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
• Savor Seattle Walking Tours combines two Seattle loves - chocolate and coffee - for a two-hour, forty-five-minute tour for $69.
• Boehms Candies in Issaquah offers self-guided window tours and $3 guided tours of their factory.  The 2009 season runs through November 17 and 2010 dates will be announced in January.
• Theo offers tours of their factories for $6.  See my slideshow below, and click through for captions/descriptions.

Miscellaneous Chocolate Resources

• Here's a post I did on the Experimental College class Exploring Chocolate with the "Chocolate Man" Bill Fredericks.  The Exploring Chocolate class is being offered again on November 20.  He teaches many of the chocolate classes offered at Sweet Decadence (see above) and Seattle-area community colleges as well as the Experimental College and I can't recommend him highly enough. 
• PFI is a great resource for well-priced bulk Guittard and Callebaut chocolates, which were a couple of winners in the tasting at that Exploring Chocolate.
• We recently had a Chocolate Salon here in Seattle, and their list of 2009 winners is up.
• They don’t appear to have anything scheduled right now, but if you are curious about how raw foodists manage their chocolate cravings, Dalene’s is a hub for raw food learning and they do offer chocolate classes. I’ve asked in the past and they might schedule them for private classes if you have enough folks.
• Here’s a Seattle Times article with some great background info on the various places you can do classes and tours in the city.
• While the author of the ChocolateSpeak blog is now covering the chocolate beat in Berlin, her Seattle Chocolate Guide still gives you a good sense of the producers and shops in the area.

Events