The second and third days of the UnConference were almost identical to last year's, but there were some differences, which you will see in a moment. The day started as normal, with us having breakfast at the hotel's restaurant, and walking to the Meydenbauer Center at about 8.
Day 2
The day started with another Women in Chocolate session, where we each had to give a one-minute presentation about something that we were good at, and that was fun, because I learned a bit about some things that would be useful later on, like in-person marketing.
The next seminar was one that probably had the biggest attendance rate out of all the seminars that year. The name was The Future of Craft Chocolate, and since that directly applies to me, I figured it was good for me to go. It ended up being very informative, and sort of combined a bunch of other topics, like product development, sourcing, and equipment. The highlight was this water bottle in the center of the circle of chairs, and whenever it was your turn to speak, you would go up to the water bottle and then speak. We only spoke while in close proximity to the water bottle. In a way, the water bottle was the moderator.
After lunch, the session next on our list was Cocoa Masterclass with Cacao Latitudes, which sounds really informative. But the whole session was an advertisement for a masterclass of the same name, hosted by Cacao Latitudes. The only reason we didn't leave was because Sarah, a friend of ours from Meridian Cacao, was also speaking.
After that, we then went downstairs to get an early start to the festival. This was different from last year, as last year we waited until the third day to go. The difference was that this year, we had other plans for the next day, so we wanted to get a head start. We saw some cool things, but the definite favorite was a brand called Melissa Coppel, who had this very innovative Pecan Pie truffle, among other things like Lime Caramel and Pecan Caramel. The pecan pie was unavailable to take with us, but we got the same thing in bar form, which was just as good. Melissa was a pastry chef at the French Laundry. This may sound familiar, and that's because Sandy, the head chocolatier at andSons was also in that position once. We also found a few people we saw last year, including Dandelion. There were some new things to see, like Mirzam Chocolate. They had some very interesting packaging, with vibrant colors and gradients.
Day 3
Day 3 was identical to last year's Day 3, as far as the Festival goes. Anyway, we did our normal breakfast routine and headed off for some more exploration of the Festival grounds. We had a very nice visit to the Dandelion booth, ad we picked out five bars to take home. I had a budget of $100, and last year I stretched this down to $4.50. I planned to make it even tighter this year. We picked up a bag of my brother Felix's favorites, German truffles called goufrais. They're these little pieces of chocolate that immediately melt in your mouth. We also found a booth with these special bonbons, and we got a cherry bonbon, a peppermint bonbon, and a lemon yuzu bonbon, which seems to be a popular flavor in chocolate these days. A few jcoco bars also went into my backpack, which is where I stored all of the chocolate, business cards, and other stuff like that. We then returned to the Dandelion booth, and there we met Nate, our amazing tour guide. We had a nice chat, where we found out he had just come back from Hawai'i.
We had some plans with Anne after, which involved a thorough visit of Pike's Place Market. This place is famous for "the fish throwing", which is apparently this whole thing. I'd never heard of anything like that, but for some reason Pike's Place Market is world-famous for some fishmonger who throws fish. Anne showed us a lot there, as she is a part-time resident of Seattle, and knows her way around the market. There was a great spice store with all manner of spices and seasonings, there was a cookware store where we looked at all there was to see, and there was a little kitchen where you could watch people hand-making cheese. We had a lovely lunch at a farm-to-table restaurant with a great view of the market. It was a fantastic way to cap off another amazing UnConference.
This is me and Anne at dinner. We went to an amazing tapas bar, and we tried just about everything. There were some really good chicken skewers, some fantastic empanadas, and a delicious chocolate cake.
I am tasting some Lemon Curd from Yeti Chocolates, one of the many exhibitors on the show floor. They had some good-looking truffles, but I opted out.
I am in front of the Dandelion booth with one of their members, Norah. This is right after I got the five bars from them, each of which was delicious, as I have come to expect from them.
I am on the show floor with Nate, the tour guide from the Dandelion factory tour. He just got back from Hawai'i, as in the night before, and so I did not see him yesterday.
Here I am in front of the big Pike's Place Market sign with Anne, who will show us everything the market has to offer. Anne owns a cacao farm, Pa'ani Farms, which operates on the Big Island of Hawai'i. That was my first origin tour, and also my first chance to actually pick a pod off of the tree.
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