Travelog post for: Lorca

Good morning Mum!

Oh mum, today was a great day. Shilo took us to Cologne to visit the Chocolate Museum. And inside the museum is a chocolate factory.

First we went into the tropic house. There I found a coffee plant, but it has no fruits at the moment.



Here we could see the different ingredients from chocolate



Then we went into the section with the chocolate factory.
In the Cocoa mill the pre-crushed cocoa kernels were milled and trough the frictional heat the cocoa butter melts and the cocoa mass leaves the mill in a liquid state.
This is a giant mixer. Chocolate essentially consists of cocoa paste, cocoa butter, sugar, milk or cream powder, and flavourings such as vanilla. All components were filled into the mixer and thoroughly blended.  After that the paste was lead to the rolling mill.



The luke-warm chocolate paste is passed into the preheated moulds. The moulds then pass over a vibrating table so that the chocolate paste is evently distributed and any air bubbles can escape. When the chocolate was cooled down this crane took it, so it could be wrapped up. This chocolate was given as a gift for every visitor at the entrance.





This is a giant chocolate fountain. It looks so yummy and I hope I can taste a little bit of this chocolate.



Oh great, host dad was so nice and shared his chocolate with me



Look mum; here you could see how different chocolate sculptures were made out of different shapes.



The best thing in the factory beside the chocolate fountain is that you could design your own chocolate. You could choose which kind of chocolate you want and up to 4 ingredients which came into it. We choose white chocolate with cranberries, almond and crisps.



Here we could see how the self-designed chocolate was made.









After that we needed a little break



Wow this is the in Germany very famous Milka cow



Here we could see how the packaging of some chocolate products changed through the years





I couldn’t imagine how long it will take to eat this huge chocolate ball



On our way back to the factory we saw some old commercials





Great we got our self-made chocolate. It looks really yummy.



It was a wonderful day. We had so much fun and we learned a lot about the history of chocolate and how it was made.

Love you Mum
Lorca