Imagine spending a day visiting a chocolate factory!
And imagine not just any factory, but an innovative small-batch artisan chocolate business that uses sustainable cacao, and where the founder is there to give a private look behind the scenes and to share information, insights, inspiration, and of course lots of delicious chocolate.
This dream was reality for A-Listers: through the Kendall College Incubator, I invited top Kendall students to accompany me on a visit to my esteemed client
Violet Sky Chocolate.
We saw how Violet Sky's founder Hans Westerink makes delicious, pure, and mind-blowingly creative chocolate from cocoa bean to chocolate bar, and discussed his craft and vision with him. We also toured the arts innovation center where Violet Sky is located, had a delightful fresh local lunch, and took a short side trip to the beautiful campus of the University of Notre Dame, all in South Bend, Indiana, 95 miles (153 km) from Chicago.
Be sure to scroll all the way down for lots of photos from this very special day trip, Labor Day 2017, plus excellent student commentary at the end, along with more photos!
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Front row: yours truly Valerie Beck, Mikaela Turner, Benedita Silva Pinto, Kadisha Mukhamejanova, Michael Wulfstat.
Back row: Nuno Duarte Silva, Francisco Ricaurte, Sean Johnson, Martim Castro, Baptiste Perillat.
Behind the back row: our train from Chicago to South Bend! |
Chocolate maker Hans Westerink is a dear client of my business
Chocolate Uplift; I distribute his chocolate bars to stores like
Hannah's Bretzel in Chicago, and I include his magnificent creations in some of my
craft chocolate subscription boxes and at many of my
speaking engagements. At age 28, Hans is already one of the top craft chocolate makers in the world, known for bold, inventive chocolate, and was my
2016 Chocolate Maker of the Year!
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| It is always a pleasure to see Hans, and it's an honor to work with him! |
A-Listers and I had a such a marvelous time on our private tour of Violet Sky Chocolate in sweet South Bend! Hans demonstrated how he crafts chocolate from bean to bar, starting with:
- roasting raw cocoa beans,
- then winnowing (de-shelling) them,
- grinding them for 3 - 5 days nonstop,
- adding cane sugar to the cacao to make chocolate - no soy lecithin or oils or other nasties! Just cacao and sugar -- all you need!
Then:
- Hans tempers the chocolate,
- he molds the chocolate,
- he wraps each chocolate bar by hand - sometimes with the help of his dear younger sister Gaby - and
- voila!
- Often during the process he will add ultra creative inclusions to the chocolate bars, such as his handmade za'atar blend of Middle Eastern spices like thyme, sesame, and sumac, which was a hit in one of my recent subscription boxes!
You see, Violet Sky meets my "S" criteria: the chocolate is sustainable, slavery-free, soy-free, small-batch, and scrumptious! And it goes beyond, into being truly sensational!
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| chocolate molds at Violet Sky Chocolate |
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| colorful chocolate wrappers, all to be folded by hand, for that unique Violet Sky style |
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| color and cacao |
Hans was an informative and gracious host, letting our outstanding group of sharp, inquisitive, and energetic students ask many thoughtful questions, and letting us taste different stages of the chocolate making process, starting where chocolate starts: raw cacao and then roasted cacao. The raw Cacao Verapaz of Guatemala cocoa beans taste nutty - cacao is after all a nut, as the seed of the fruit of the cacao tree - and the same beans roasted taste like brownies, due to chemical reactions as that's what cooking and baking is about!
Side note with an easy recipe tip from me to you: put raw cacao nibs on your grapefruit in the morning, along with Violet Sky Chocolate, for a superfood supernova breakfast - my favorite!
Back to our excursion: Hans also allowed us to taste chocolate straight from the melangeur, that is, the cacao grinder - tasting chocolate during the grinding process is one of life's richest pleasures! The melangeur had been grinding the cacao for 4 days to turn it into chocolate. You might say that time is an ingredient in cooking and baking, and in craft chocolate.
Hans generously provided delicious chocolate bars and vegan and non-vegan truffles for us to sample and compare, such as his luscious new dark milk chocolate, a wondrously complex barrel-aged chocolate, and a sizzling habanero chocolate (#aztecrevivalism!), plus bars to take home.
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| Hans explains roasting with his test batch roaster |
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| Cacao is ground in the melangeur 3 to 5 days nonstop to become craft chocolate |
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| Tasting chocolate straight from the melangeur is a deeply delicious and special treat that we all enjoyed! |
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| Who didn't lick their spoons clean?? |
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| Vibrant and hand-wrapped Violet Sky Chocolate bars |
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| We tasted truffles, vegan truffles, and 3 types of chocolate bars, all made at Violet Sky, and all amazing |
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| Happy chocolate smiles! |
Hans also took extra time to give us a tour of the arts and innovation center,
LangLab, where Violet Sky is located. South Bend is experiencing a cultural and business renaissance, in part through the maker movement, and Violet Sky is an exciting part of that!
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| This way for Violet Sky Chocolate, Zen Cafe Coffee Roasters who share a roaster with Violet Sky, and space for other makers, musicians, and artists of all kinds |
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| Outside LangLab |
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| Inside LangLab |
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| After our behind-the-scenes and thorough tour of Violet Sky Chocolate, fascinating discussions with Hans, and delicious chocolate tasting, we gratefully and excitedly received chocolate bars to take with us, and almost reluctantly headed to lunch - or maybe chocolate was lunch, and lunch was dessert! |
It was hard to leave Violet Sky! We said goodbye to Hans for now, and headed to
Purple Porch, a friendly South Bend food co-op that sells Violet Sky Chocolate, of course, where we made our own indoor picnic with vegetables, cheese, charcuterie, and more, mostly local. Our group could sit and chat, and enjoyed wonderful community and camaraderie.
After a lovely lunch, we took quick Lyft rides to the
University of Notre Dame, to explore this beautiful campus and let our students experience an example of a large American residential research university.
I'd called the week before to see if we could have an official tour of the university, but the day of our visit was Labor Day, so understandably no tours were running. Instead, some research for our group:
Founded in 1842, and enrolling women starting in 1972, Notre Dame is a Catholic-based university with over 12,000 students, including over 8,000 undergrads, with around 80% of college students involved in volunteer work alongside their studies.
The picturesque campus is spread out over 1,250 acres, so we couldn't see everything during our limited time there, but some of our group went to visit the vast and popular football stadium (please send photos! : ), while another part of our group enjoyed highlights such as the Golden Dome main building, and the beautiful church, Basilica of the Sacred Heart.
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| Notre Dame's famous Golden Dome through the trees |
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| Inside the Golden Dome |
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| Inside the Basilica, the organist began to play just as we walked in |
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| Notre Dame vista |
We could have explored many more treasures on campus, but our train schedule summoned us back. On the train ride home, we snacked on some of my homemade trail mixes that I brought for our group, and some students slept, dreaming dreams of violet skies perhaps, as we rolled through the end of a fabulous day-long A-List adventure!
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| Tickets on the app, out and back |
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| We passed through charming #midwestmoment landscapes, enjoying views of the beauty of the same Earth that gives us cacao for chocolate! |
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| I love using almonds and pistachios in my homemade trail mixes - and Violet Sky Chocolate! |
Student feedback:
Everything was so nice, from understanding the Violet Sky process bean to bar, to know the incredible campus of Notre Dame, we had a glorious day with a fantastic international group. The details of the preparation, the artistic Langlab building, everything is special there. Adding this, the shared lunch was also top moment of the day, plus knowing a beautiful different America with the amazing enormous and charming campus of Notre Dame. People, culture and craft chocolate made this day remarkable and delicious. Never forget: September 4th! :)
I love how Hans decorates the bars, the presence of the color and the simplicity of it, as with the ingredients that all is needed for chocolate "Cocoa beans + sugar + nothing else = pure delicious chocolate". What a simple and delicious formula! How chocolate can be something simple, beautiful, colorful, and elegant, as the "simplicity is the first step to elegance”.
It was very kind of you giving us this opportunity. It was such a nice day. Thank you so much for giving us these opportunities, it is a beautiful way of volunteer!
Thank you too for sharing your passion and to uplift us in a better way.
- Martim Castro
What I loved the most about our visit on the past Monday was the simplicity of both the place and Hans'! It was incredible to see how such fine and delicious chocolate is actually made with such simple ingredients. In addition, what did impressed me a lot too was how complex and time consuming the chocolate making process actually was! I understood that Hans does put a lot of thought and love in it. In fact, I got mesmerized with the way he expresses himself by what he does with the chocolate! Everything has a meaning and it is impressive to see a person who clearly is more of a shy and introvert type to share his emotions and ideas so naturally through his amazing product! It was really inspiring!
- Benedita Ribeiro da Costa Silva Pinto
I love what Hans said about why he named is chocolate Violet Sky: remember to look up, soak in the moment, and be glad that you're here, embrace purity and transparency.
-Mikaela Turner
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What a pleasure to spend time with A-Listers, and client!
Front: Martim, Benedita, Francisco, yours truly, Mikaela, Kadisha.
Back: Nuno, Baptiste, Sean, Michael, Hans.
See you next time! |
Onward and upward!
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