TCHO Chocolate

“Just got back from a tour of their factory. Super interesting and fun!! Be ready to sample a bunch of yummy chocolate. And, they offer a 25% discount if you buy from their store. They even have cooking chocolate, which I haven’t run across in stores. Some people asked where to get TCHO chocolate. Berkeley Bowl, Whole Foods, Monterey Market and Berkeley Natural Grocery all carry it. One of the cool things is that they are a B Corp, which is hard to obtain. Their employees embody the aspect of humanity and care that goes along with companies who focus on purpose not only profit. Hope people who wrote bad reviews look into TCHO’s mission and cut them some slack. They are an amazing company who make super yummy chocolate!!”

“If you love chocolate then you need to go to the TCHO Chocolate lab | Tasting Room. They offer an amazing, informative, educational and tasty tour into how chocolate becomes chocolate. From bean to bar, they produce incredible, delicious, thoughtful and unique flavors of chocolate that are truly unique and amazing. Their staff is friendly and knowledgeable while helping you with questions on every step of the process, transforming cocoa beans to incredible flavored chocolate! A must for any chocolatier | chocolaholic!”

“The tour is informative, they show you a decent presentation about their company, but sadly they do not show the actual process of making chocolate. The tour on the factory takes about 15 minutes and you’re just shown the boxes ( their storage) and the machines, most of which are turned off. So, their shift is over and everything is cleaned up :( I wish I had seen the whole process of making the chocolate, at least it was my expectation. Not worth a long drive, but if you are in the area, definitely check it out UPDATE: The website doesn’t provide the information that depending on the time of your appointment you actually might NOT be able to see the production and that tours are different (meaning sometimes people actually see the process of making chocolate as advertised on the website. I assume it happens during their 11am tours, as per the owner’s response). ONLY AFTER you pay for your NON-REFUNDABLE tickets do you get an email that says “elements of production may not be running during your tour”. I wish I had seen this IMPORTANT info on the website or at time of buying tickets. Why state: we’ll take you through the chocolate making process” when it’s not true if people come for 4pm tour :(”

“This was interesting, but below expectations. The tour is segmented into three components: (1) sit on bleachers + listen to the tour guide talk about the company and its chocolate + watch a video, (2) go see the factory floor, though you won't actually see much of anything or learn all that much about the actual process, and (3) taste some chocolate. The first two segments are purely audio, visual, and smell. It isn't until part (3) that tactile and taste senses are brought in, unless you want to count holding a cacao pod as a tactile experience with actual chocolate. The last segment shouldn't be so isolated. Everyone knows why anyone would care to visit a chocolate tour -- they love chocolate! This tour could be amazing by spreading the tasting component over more of the tour, but instead the tour is broken into three very distinct pieces. For example, the tour could have people try a recently developed kind of chocolate at the start to get people more immersed. I'm no saying that spreading the tasting out over the tour would be without challenges, but the challenges would be relatively minor, and making these changes could dramatically improve the experience. This may seem odd, but a chocolate tour should be a like a (good) beer tour. I haven't been on any beer tours in SF yet, but TCHO may consider taking these tours to generate new ideas about how to make the TCHO tour better. If they make it to Boston, the Harpoon Brewery tour would provide many lessons, and implementing a better tour would also make people more interested in TCHO chocolate.”

“I used to be a huge fan of the Mocachino and Toffee bars and I always bought them in bulk! I was very disappointed that they had become vegan bars; they lack smoothness and the robust flavor that milk chocolate offers. The new version is very dry and has a weird grainy texture. There is also a weird artificial taste that I cannot describe. Specifically, i am very disappointed in the Holy Fudge bar. It says it is a “fudgy truffle” with notes of “crisp brownie edges”, so I thought it’s supposed to have a moist gooey soft fudgy -liked center with bits of crispy brownie?!?! Turns out it’s just a piece of dry solid hard chocolate without any layers; I ended up using it as baking chocolates :(”