CHocolate.

broq fabrique, and maison callier

this past week i took a trip to Broc-Fabrique to see the place where Callier chocolate is made. Broc is in the hills of the Gruyere region, just a few kilometers from the town of Gruyere where this famous cheese is made. since cacao is not produced in Switzerland there must be something very special about the milk produced in this region to create such great cheese and chocolate!

we stepped off the train and could already smell the chocolate. we quickly hustled into the Nestle "factory outlet" to purchase some chocolate bars and other goodies before it closed. at this point we'd already taken three trains, smelled chocolate in the air, and now were looking at bars and bars of the stuff. i was practically drooling.

old chocolate packaging- great design!

apparently, chocolate is quite good for your health... dietary fiber, minerals, even a natural anti-depressant: 

chocolate is healthy!

the actual production lines are far from view, but a unique video/interactive exhibit tells the story of chocolate arriving in europe and the first brand of chocolate in switzerland: Callier, now owned by Nestle. the best part of the exhibit for me was the mini production line where we saw chocolate being extruded, cut into pieces, then coated by melted chocolate, picked up by a robot and placed into a little wrapper which we could then take for tasting. by this point we were dying to taste some chocolate- yum! the tour ended with a fantastic tasting room- i couldn't even make it around the room- some were too dark and some too sweet for me or perhaps it was just chocolate overload. on the way back we made a stop to pick up some salty snacks and i think we're all taking a short break from chocolate.

the tasting room.