Cacao de Origen (with a real life Willy Wonka)

Meanwhile, on my trip to Venezuela.....(more to come)

On Friday we went to tour a chocolate shop and factory called Cacao de Origen where they make chocolate and we met a real life (hottie) Willy Wonka named Bernardo!  Let me explain why I nicknamed him this….

1. He owned a business where they make chocolate
2. He wore purple pants (bright purple)
3. He had crazy curly hair (not crazy bad, but crazy curly)
4. He was very passionate about chocolate (cacao)
5. There were Oompa Loompas (OK, I might have made that up-but they were probably hiding in the back where we couldn’t see them)

See?  He was a real life Willy Wonka!   

Anyway, he was very passionate about cacao and bringing it back to Venezuela as a major industry.  In the past, cacao used to be a major industry, but when they discovered oil in the 30’s they dropped cacao and focused on oil. 

He could talk for hours about chocolate!  Seriously.  I have never seen someone that was this passionate about what they did, it was very sexy. Guys in the states aren’t passionate about anything (well, that might not be true) and to see a guy care so much was very interesting.  I fell in love. :)   (I hope he never reads this because that would be embarrassingly awkward.  I’m sure he’s married or something.)

Cacao de Origen

Anyway, we took a tour of his shop and the space where they manufacture the chocolate and then proceeded to almost buy out the store.  They were selling cakes, hot chocolate, bombones and more.  It smelled so good in there!  I kept singing the song “Hot Chocolate” from the Polar Express in my head for the rest of the day (minus the tap dance moves.......that would have been weird).

We had a taste test after the tour where we had to rate the different bars.  I couldn’t tell you which was which or anything about the different ones except that I liked #3 the best, but he knew all about it and was dissecting the flavors.  I’m telling you-----he was very passionate (in a good way) about his career.  It was really refreshing to see someone that cared about what they were doing. 

I bought tons of chocolate (mainly for my nephews and coworker gifts) plus some little gummies for Kali Claire.  They were gummies in different colors (red, green, yellow, and orange) that were cut in small squares.  My mom picked me up from the airport (my car was in the shop getting the bumper fixed) and Kali was with her.  Kali is learning her colors so we played a game when I gave each one to her.  I would say the name of the color and she would have to repeat to me before I gave it to her.  After a while she would just shout out the color that she wanted and refused to take any other one. My mom left them in the car when they got home (they had already dropped me off to get my car) but left the gummies in the car.  Well, we live in Texas so they melted. Whomp whomp whomp.  They come in a petri dish type container so with all of the mixed colors, it looked like a bad science experiment.  Haha.  I'm sure it is still tasty though.  I put it in the fridge but I haven't been back to my parents house to check on it.

Check out Willy Wonka’s companies, Cacao de Origen and Kakao Chocolates.