A sensory tasting journey exploring innovative creations made from the cocoa pod and plant material at York Cocoa Works.
York Cocoa Works is hosting It's NOT Chocolate Tasting Evening on Monday 21 September, from 6:30pm to 8:00pm. The title is the whole point: it's a tasting evening where nothing you taste is actually chocolate, though everything comes from the cocoa plant.
Most of us only ever think of cocoa in terms of the chocolate we eat, but that's only a tiny part of the story. Less than 10% of a cocoa pod ends up in chocolate, which leaves more than 90% to go to waste. This evening looks at what happens when you use the rest. You'll taste things like a fruit juice twenty times sweeter than sugar and a high-fibre flour, both made from the pod, alongside the challenges of growing cocoa in the communities where it originates. It's a sensory journey through the plant itself rather than the finished product we're used to.
It sits quite naturally in York, a city that's called 'The Chocolate City' for a reason. The connection goes back to 1646, when John Reilly was awarded freemanship of the city as a 'Confectioner', and from there some of the world's best-known brands took root. Rowntree's gave us Kit Kat, Smarties and Aero; Terry's came up with the Chocolate Orange and All Gold; Craven's produced French Almonds and Mary Ann Toffees. Much of that legacy was built by Quaker families, with Mary Tuke and Joseph Rowntree at the heart of it. This evening takes that chocolate association and turns it on its head, focusing on the parts of the cocoa plant that usually get thrown away.
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It runs from 6:30pm to 8:00pm on Monday 21 September at York Cocoa Works.
