Chocolita's at the Chocolate Factory

Chocolate Tasting at Fascia's Chocolate Factory

Danielle, Bianca, Dizzy, Pahl, Barbara, and Nicole

One of the meetings I longed to plan with my group as soon as I acquired my own chocolate themed dress was to go to a chocolate factory dressed in our chocolate or sweet themed outfits together. Luckily Fascia's chocolate factory in Connecticut not only offers tours, but also make your own bar and chocolate tasting experiences right in Waterbury! 

​We planned our meeting the second Saturday of April 2024. We booked the "Sweeten Your Spirits" tour and tasting, which allows for the option to try chocolate pairings with alcoholic beverages (but we skipped the alcohol part). The approximately two hour program led us through each stage of the chocolate process from how cacao beans are harvested, where they come from, how a roasted cacao nib becomes cocoa butter, how the cocoa butter is processed with sugar and eventually becomes the milk, dark, and white chocolate we enjoy as chocolate candy. 

Fascia's basically buys these large bars of chocolate which they then melt down and add their own percentage of cocoa butter to sugar, vanilla, and other flavorings to achieve the different kinds of chocolate candy available.

The program included tasting chocolate at different stages of its preparation. Barbara and I found the roasted cacao bean to be quite palatable when paired with dried cranberries, but otherwise while it smells like chocolate, the taste it is pretty bitter on its own.

They also include a white chocolate and dark chocolate pairing set that gives suggestions on what kind of alcohol to pair it with. Barbara, center, is holding up one of these packages.

After we had our official tastings, we also got to make a huge bar (about 1/2 pound) of take home chocolate. They asked us if we wanted dark or milk chocolate (or both) and then brought perfectly melted liquid chocolate with toppings such as rice puffs, sea salt, sea salt with jalapeno seasoning, chopped almonds, and sprinkles. These fresh take home bars were THE BEST. I'm still dreaming about their dark chocolate paired with the jalapeno sea salt. 

As you can see, we have a lot of snacks other than chocolate at our table. The factory encouraged us to bring snacks to not only pair with our chocolate, but also to just eat while enjoying each other's company. The full educational part of the program only lasted about an hour, so we had another hour to socialize.  This was perfect for me, because I didn't really know anyone else from our group yet except for Pahl and Barbara. 

Musee du Chocolat from Angelic Pretty paired with chocolate themed everything

As for my coordinate for the meeting, I went for a combination of milk and white chocolate. My dress is the Musee du Chocolat salopette from Angelic Pretty (the one I had to have altered to fit my chest) . I am wearing a milk chocolate and white striped stand collar blouse from Miss Point, a light brown beret with darker brown trim that 42Lolita accidentally sent me, Yukine's Box Retro Chocolate Color over the knee socks, with some off brand suede brown and off white booties. I am also utilizing a chocolate bar cross body from the chinese indie brand Lovely Lota. I enjoyed making my eye makeup very glam while sticking with warm neutral tones for my blush and lip colors. I am wearing a watch necklace as well as gold hoops to match the gold details on my salopette. 

This coordinate has been at least two years in the making, and it still has room for improvement. I have been searching for a solid brown stand collar blouse that will fit my chest now for 2 years, but I have not yet been successful. So striped it is, for now. 

Pahl used this chocolate factory meeting to create an outfit around the different cinematic versions of Willy Wonka. His outfit I would say is more closely related to Timothee Chalamet's Wonka with the striped pants, green waistcoat, and reddish cravat, but the gray top hat, and deep reddish purple tail coat are similar to Johnny Depp's Wonka. 

Barbara's outfit doesn't quite scream chocolate, but what's wrong with constellations and cats? She just really wanted to wear this beautiful dress and to be honest, I don't blame her. She looks great in this deep teal green and gold star trimmed dress with various celestial and feline imagery in the border print. She tied the gold in again with her rose headdress and the cats in again with her decorative cat earrings. All in all an intersteller coordinate!

Bianca is wearing an Alice in Wonderland themed salopette that utilizes a variety of colors with white as its main color and lilac, grey blue, grey green, rose pink, ivory, and chocolate brown as accent colors, along with various imagery of teacups, glasses, rabbits, Alice, etc. The skirt flares quite a bit at the bottom and an entire scene is revealed as you view the dress from different angles. The matching bunny ear headband is so cute! This is definitely a sweet style and pairs will with the sweet theme of the day. 

While I was basically milk chocolate in my coordinate choices, Dizzy was dark chocolate in their color choices with their dress, blouse, matching head bow, and shoes. (Although Dizzy actually prefers to eat milk chocolate while I prefer to eat dark chocolate). 

Nicole made her dress and some of her accessories from scratch. She utilizes various vintage looking fabrics to great a timeless, springtime feeling with light blue, apricot, and off-white accents to a white textured blouse. She apparently makes all her own clothes and also sometimes sells bloomers made from recycled sheets at Renaissance Faires.  

I'm showing off my Handcrafted Mini Chocolate Sauce Cookie Adjustable Ring in this selfie photo, along with the little chocolate bar pin that came with my blouse.  Observe the severe fluorescent lights of the factory behind me. The tasting and bar making classroom was right next to the factory, so we could watch the chocolate coming off the conveyer belt and the factory workers (which might have been local teenagers), inspect the chocolate for quality control. 

I'm not sure that I'd rather fall in chocolate than in love, especially not while wearing my chocolate themed outfit! Overall it was an excellent program that I learned a lot at! I would definitely recommend the Sweeten Your Spirits tour, even if you don't bother with alcohol because it's just nice to socialize longer and take home a half a pound of artisanal chocolate!!!