Theo Chocolate

You can't go wrong with a visit to Theo Chocolate in the Freemont area of Seattle. They are the only "organic, fair trade, bean-to-bar chocolate in the U.S." This is our second time here, but our first time taking their tour. The first image shows the the football size fruit of a gorgeous cacao plant; the second is the most important piece of machinery - the very cool, Willy Wonka looking vintage roasting machine where an employee must taste test every 30 minutes to ensure that the nibs produced are just right; love the chocolate buddahs which are made from chocolate used to clean the machines - water/humidity makes the cacao mold at any phase of production which means machines can only be cleaned with chocolate.

The thought they left us with at the end of the tour - Read your food labels, support fair trade, most importantly, life is too short not to eat good chocolate! A bar only needs to be made of 12% chocolate to be called chocolate, so when Theo's premium chocolate is 91% cacao, you know it's good!