Day 7 - Berlin - Sunshine & Meanderings

Not forgetting I am in Germany and this wasn't meant to be about chocolate, I left my apartment to meander about with no great chocolate pursuits in mind (and safe in the knowledge I had a reasonable stash at the apartment and therefore no great need either).  However sometimes happy finds come when you least expect them and so happened to me. 

I stumbled upon artisan chocolatier Atelier Cocao wandering around the Oranienburger Tor district off Berlin.  They manufacture at this location and like some 50's American tv housewife, they were cooling chocolates on an open window sill and I could smell the chocolate wafting from across the road.  Okay, this is a slight exaggeration, they were cooling the chocolates by an open door, but a door doesn't allow me to conjure up black and white America tv cookies cooling on the window sill type images.  Likewise, you couldn't quite smell the chocolate from across the road, but you could smell it whilst walking past and it was rather intoxicating.  But I prefer my first image.  However, it is no exaggeration to tell you that blessed chocolate smell enveloped me wonderfully, even if momentarily!

Sadly the store doesn't open until later in the day, so after obtrusively sticking my nose up against the window for a little longer than is polite, I decide to try and get back later in the day.  So off a wandering again I go, this time to Prenzlauer district where in the autumnal sunshine I get rather excited to see across the road a store called Neon Chocolate.  Given the lovely little boutiques and cafes I have been passing I have high hopes for an aesthetic little den of Berlin chocolate loveliness.  My pace quickens as I cross the road, expectation rising with every step, only to stop abruptly as I realise this is no chocolate store, but just a confusing name for an art gallery.  Be damned you clever, quirky gallery naming folk!  But I do laugh at myself and get back to enjoying the gorgeous sunshine and this fantastic neighborhood of Berlin, happy to have left the horrendous hordes of tourists and cold grey skies a few U Bahn stops behind me.

Which brings me to my next S Bahn trip (you have to love the amazingly efficient public transport in Berlin!).  Remember my little artisan find earlier this morning, I realise I am about to pass through the same area on the train so make a rash decision to jump off and return.  And they have a lovely little environment going on with tables and chairs for lingering out in the sun, but me being me, I always like to chat, and all the better if it is about chocolate.  Fortunately the lovely sales girl ‘sprechen sie Englisch’ and is happy to tell me about their products as I stand there listening, but constantly distracted by that enveloping chocolate smell.  Oh, not to mention distracted by the samples on offer!

The first sample is oh so German and topped with a number of things including the pumpkin seeds that seem to find themselves into all sorts of German foodstuffs.  As I taste, the gorgeously nice girl explains numerous things including that they sell in a number of other places, that the chocolate is Peruvian (hmmm, I’ve never really had a good Peruvian experience) and that it is both fair-trade and organic (ditto to organic and often fair-trade chocolate, despite good intentions). 

I move on to the 70% and must admit, despite wanting to love it I am left under whelmed.  Which is a shame, as they are so nice and as I stand there, internally passing judgment on their chocolate, she continues to explain one of their specialties; chocolate embedded with local dried flowers i.e. rose, lavender and what I think after a lack of language and one drawing later dandelion. 

The chocolate certainly isn’t bad (its just not great) and given that they are so nice I do leave with a block of 70% with cranberries in it.  Why, I have no idea as I am not even sure I like cranberries that much and not normally in my chocolate – I can see a present for someone coming on!  I also leave with marzipan and nougat individual chocolates, again not my normal fare but I don’t mind these and it does seem to be the German way with chocolate after all, that and pumpkin seeds (although stay tuned for some interesting concoctions involving chocolate and pumpkin.)

And on that note I finish up my German adventures, confused and delighted by my last chocolate experience (still can’t work out why I brought that damned cranberry chocolate!!).  But now I am officially in trouble, I’ve arrived in Italy and oh my goodness the chocolate is phenomenal, the stores are stunning – everything is amazing. 

As for my blog, can’t type; too busy stuffing chocolate in my mouth…