Description
TCHO is New American Chocolate.
What does it take to make New American Chocolate? Obsession. Obsession with flavor. Obsession with innovation. Obsession over fusing the two to craft the very best chocolate, from bean to bar.
The obsession begins at origin. We don't just buy good beans, we help make the best beans. TCHOSource is our unique sourcing program, designed to obtain the best beans in the world while enabling the producers of those beans to earn a better living.
We go beyond fair trade (which we also support) to partner directly with growers. We help them improve the genetics of their plants, improve their cacao fermentation by redesigning their fermentaria, and improve cacao drying by designing new drying racks. We also provide them flavor labs where they can actually make chocolate ? for many, this is the first time they taste chocolate made from their own beans. Then we provide sensory training so we can speak a common language about the results of their efforts. And finally, we link it all together in a common, cloud-based database ? called Cropster ? where we can share the results of all our efforts in real time. All to enable our partners to produce the exceptional, flavor-driven cacao that we pay premium prices for, so we can make seriously superior chocolate ? New American Chocolate.
Integral to New American Chocolate are our recipes, and that brings us to Beta. Beta is TCHO's obsession with co-creating our chocolates with our customers. How? After our own intensive development process, we invite you to taste our efforts, give us online feedback, then incorporate that feedback to iterate new versions ? which we invite you to taste and react to again. Rise and repeat. This program has resulted in our creating with your feedback thousands of recipe iterations over the years, resulting in the extraordinary chocolates we proudly craft every day. Beta isn't the way making chocolate is normally done, but normal never leads to extraordinary. And New American Chocolate is definitely extraordinary.
Extraordinary is re-imagining what it means to taste chocolate, as represented by our dark and milk Flavor Wheels. Because chocolate isn't just one flavor, savoring chocolate is a journey for your intellect and emotions, as well as your senses. At TCHO, we believe that journey should go beyond percentages and origins ? which can be incomplete, even deceptive descriptors ? which is why we created PureNotes dark chocolate. PureNotes explore the pure flavors inherent in cacao beans themselves, nothing added. For example, the hints of red berry in our PureNotes "Fruity" (single origin sourced from Peru), or bright acids like in mandarin oranges in our "Citrus" (from Madagascar), or the deep, hearty richness in our "Chocolatey" (Ghana), or subtlety of roasted nuts in our "Nutty" (Ecuador). Likewise, milk chocolate isn't one flavor either, which is why we created SeriousMilk. Our first two SeriousMilks explore the caramel notes that come from heating milk and sugar in our Classic, as well as the underlying chocolate in our Cacao.
So yes, we are obsessed. We're obsessed with making a better world. We obsess over where our cacao comes from and how our growers are involved. We're obsessed with finding the perfect recipe for our chocolate. We're obsessed with creating an experience that delights. But, most of all, we're obsessed with you. We want you to rediscover chocolate like never before. You?our partners, our growers, our co-creators, our friends. You are our inspiration, our motivation, our true obsession.
Hours
The TCHO Factory experience includes a presentation and factory tour with the most knowledgeable and entertaining chocolate experts in town, as well as an in-depth guided tasting of our flavor-driven, artisan chocolate. The tour lasts about an hour.
Learn everything you ever wanted to know about the history of chocolate, our unique TCHOSource program of direct training and investments in cocoa farmers, and how we manufacture our New American Chocolate from scratch right here in San Francisco.
Public tours run twice daily at 10:30 am and 2 pm (PST), 7 days a week. The tour is free and accommodate up to 29 people. To guarantee a spot on the tour please click the orange button below to make a reservation.
Please arrive 5 minutes before your scheduled tour to check in. If you are not here 5 minutes prior, your tickets will be released to the waiting list. This rule will be strictly enforced!
Other Information
IMPORTANT: You will be visiting a food production facility. We take your safety and our responsibility for food security very seriously. The following are absolutely not allowed:
1. Open-toed shoes (including sandals, flip-flops, and any other open-toed shoes)
2. Children under the age of 8 (due to FDA regulations).
3. Jewelry, watches, or any loose objects, including cameras and cellphones.
4. Bags, backpacks and purses. You will be required to remove them and put them in your pockets or in a bin we will provide.
5. TCHO will provide each tour participant with a hair net, beard guard, and earplugs. Their use is mandatory.