My wife recently won some passes to check out the various offerings by The Hershey Company in Hershey, PA.  One of these included free admission to The Hershey Story and a chocolate tasting at Cafe Zooka.   The chocolate tasting in this case consisted of a series of single origin drinking chocolates from around the world.  They were made by melting chocolate and blending it with milk in a 1:3 ratio.  Each serving is 1-1.5oz depending on who at the counter is pouring.

You get 6 different varieties, and a small glass of water, in the tasting.  The chocolates, with percentage cocao, are from: Mexico (70.1%), Ecuador (66%), Sao Thome (70%), Madagascar (66%), Tanzania (75%), and Java (32.9%).

(My daughter couldn’t wait)

We began the tour in Java since it has the lowest cocao rating and worked our way up.  With Madagascar and Ecuador tied we took the one nearest us, respectively, which left me with Madagascar.  In between each sip we cleansed our palates with the provided water.

Initial impressions left us rating them, in descending order of preference, as follows:

Me: Java, Sao Thome, Tanzania, Mexico, Ecuador, Madagascar.

My Wife: Ecuador, Java, Sao Thome, Mexico, Tanzania, Madagascar.

After talking about it with one another we discovered why we rated them this way.  Those at the top were the most familiar and reminded us the most of a regular dime store chocolate bar.  The further you got away from that the more unique the characteristics were, which made them foreign to our tastes.  As we sipped further and took our time, each individual variety opened up some of its secrets and by the end of the event we found that they had each grown on us and they were all of equal caliber.  Our only complaint is that by the end they had begun to cool and the flavors started to close up as they did so.  Ideally, these should be drank warm and fresh, each glass finished in 3 or 4 sips at most.  Do not go slow to keep savoring each flavor but let it fill your mouth and overwhelm your senses.  Revel in the experience, but share it with someone whose company you enjoy.

Would I go and enjoy these drinking chocolates again?  Most certainly.  At $9.95 it is an affordable and enjoyable little decadence, something that is getting harder and harder to find.

And it makes for a great date.