Chocolate and food blog

Beyond the Recipe: Sharing Chocolate Skills Across Classrooms and Continents

A chef’s reflection on sharing chocolate skills, inspiring confidence and connecting cultures.

Can Subscriptions Give Craft Chocolate Makers a Better Route to the Consumer?

How subscriptions could help craft chocolate makers reach consumers directly, protect margins and build stronger customer relationships.

Beyond Cocoa Powder: Using Fruit and Vegetable Powders for Truffle Coatings

Creative truffle coatings using economical vegetable powders, premium fruit powders and imaginative flavour pairings.

Passport to Cacao Is Here Discover the Story Behind Chocolate

A journey beyond the chocolate bar, exploring cacao through its people, places, history and culture.

Why Does Chocolate Melt in Your Mouth? The Science of Cocoa Butter

Discover why chocolate melts so beautifully in your mouth and how cocoa butter, temperature and crystal structure create that smooth, luxurious sensation.

Cacao vs Cocoa: What’s the Difference? A Chocolatier Explains

Cacao or cocoa? Discover the real difference, why the terms are often confused, and what really matters when choosing chocolate products.

How to Taste Chocolate Like an Expert | Chocolate Tasting Guide

Learn how to taste chocolate using all five senses and discover what makes great chocolate truly memorable.

The Beer That Needed No Label

Seaside fish, charcoal fire and an unlabelled Rosema beer in São Tomé.

The Yorkshire Collection: Six Chocolates Inspired by God’s Own County

Six handcrafted pralines celebrating the flavours, ingredients and food stories of Yorkshire.

Chocolate Ganache Flavour Ideas for Profitable workshops

A profitable chocolate workshop does not need twenty specialist flavourings and an uncontrolled mountain of packaging. Sometimes all you need is good ganache, instant coffee, ginger biscuits and a firm rule about the ribbons.

Why Keep a Chocolate Journal? A Guide to Tasting Chocolate

Discover how keeping a chocolate tasting journal can sharpen your palate, build your flavour vocabulary and turn every bar into part of your chocolate journey.

What Food Judges Really Look For in Award-Winning Artisan Product

International food judge and chocolatier David Greenwood-Haigh assessing award-winning artisan food and chocolate products.

Untempered, Not Unusable: 12 Brilliant Ways to Use Chocolate Without Wasting It

Discover 12 practical ways to use untempered or bloomed chocolate in ganache, baking, drinks, desserts and savoury cooking—while reducing waste and making the most of every piece.

Roças of São Tomé & Príncipe: Chocolate, Rainforest & the Story of Cacao

Discover São Tomé & Príncipe’s rainforest chocolate experience cacao ceremonies, historic roças, and sensory dining under the equatorial sky.

Fire, Vinegar, and the Little Red Devil of Príncipe

A journey through the markets of Príncipe where fiery malagueta chillies meet bright cacao vinegar, revealing a sauce that captures the flavour of one of the world’s last true chocolate islands.

Ribeira Ize: Cacao Forests, Hibiscus, and the Black Princess

A walk through the cacao forests of Ribeira Ize on São Tomé, where fresh cacao juice meets hibiscus and the island’s history lingers beneath the rainforest trees.

Gianduja: The Italian Chocolate Invention That Changed Chocolate Forever

Discover how Turin’s chocolatiers blended cocoa and Piedmont hazelnuts during Napoleon’s trade blockade to create gianduja one of Italy’s most famous chocolates.

When Chocolate Was Medicine: Olmecs to Apothecaries

A historical exploration of chocolate as medicine from Olmec cacao rituals to European apothecaries and modern functional chocolate

Your Face Is Your Passport | Lomé, Togo Story

A market encounter in Lomé that reshaped how I think about identity, lineage, and cocoa origin.

At the Edge of Europe: Where Cocoa Arrives

From Ghana and Togo to Amsterdam’s docks a firsthand look at cocoa’s journey and the infrastructure behind chocolate’s global value.

Your First 72 Hours in Ghana on a Chocolate Safari® Traveller advice to help you arrive well, settle in, and enjoy the journey

Cocoa Quarantine & Plant Health: Protecting Chocolate’s Future

A first-hand visit to the cocoa quarantine facilities at the University of Reading, revealing how plant health, biosecurity, and research protect chocolate’s future.

Lost Cocoa Houses of London: Lockhart’s Cocoa Rooms

Explore Lockhart’s Cocoa Rooms and the lost cocoa houses that shaped London’s social life long before modern coffee chains.

Libation: When a Conversation Becomes a Performance

A thoughtful guide to Ghanaian libation, explaining its cultural meaning, structure, and why respect matters more than spectacle.

Carrying Ghana: Stories from the Head Pan | Chocolate Safari®

A reflective essay on Ghanaian carrying culture, women in cocoa, and how the humble head pan inspired the Whole Pod Philosophy™.

The Chocolate Fountain Experience Coeur de Xocolat

Explore the sensory science of chocolate fountains techniques, textures, and tasting insights from World Master Chef David Greenwood-Haigh.

From Boudoir to Bean | The Secret History of Drinking Chocolate

Discover how 18th-century aristocrats turned hot chocolate into an art form a story of luxury, culture, and conscience from Coeur de Xocolat.

São Tomé & Príncipe: The Voice of the Forest

A poetic story from São Tomé blending cocoa, fire, and folklore where chocolate making becomes a prayer to the island’s forest and its song.

Rethinking the Bliss Point in Craft Chocolate

Explore how small-batch makers redefine chocolate’s bliss point creating flavourful pleasure without the sugar-driven manipulation of mass-market bars.

Faith, Chocolate & the Divine Bean: A Sacred Journey

Explore how faith shaped chocolate’s 3,000-year story from Maya temples to Quaker factories and today’s Fairtrade farms.