North West Chocolate Festival 2019
Travel Diary
One of our festival organizers, Sheba Augustine, travelled to Seattle in November to attend the North West Chocolate Festival on behalf of Grenada Chocolate Fest. She reports back about what a wonderful experience the festival was. Check it out below
I travelled to Seattle on behalf of Grenada Chocolate Fest and the Grenada Tourism Authority for the annual North-West Chocolate Festival. This festival takes place for two days in November at a large waterfront venue used as a cruise ship terminal throughout the year. Craft chocolatiers, bakers, toffee makers and crafters from all over the world gather to show off their creations. It was a chocolate lover’s heaven because all the chocolates on display could be sampled! I tasted some pretty impressive bars. The most memorable ones for me were from Ecuador -it was filled with cocoa pulp and another bar from Mexico made with cocoa and a sesame paste called tahini. It really opened my eyes to the infinite creative possibilities of chocolate.
The Grenada Chocolate Fest and the Grenada Tourism Authority had its own stall where festival-goers had the opportunity to sample and buy chocolates from 4 of the 5 Grenadian Chocolate Companies. Some of the crowd favourites were the new Coconut Cream 75% Bar from Crayfish Bay, the Pure Grenada Bar from Belmont Estate and the Salty-licious bar from the Grenada Chocolate Company. Surprisingly several people were excited to try the 100% bar from the Grenada Chocolate Company. Many people were curious about Grenada and our revolutionary chocolate industry. Others had visited the festival for many years and remember the days of the Grenada Chocolate Company having a stall.
Christine Horsford-Noel from the Grenada Tourism Authority in the US and I took the opportunity to make a presentation about Grenada as a destination and speak about Grenada’s chocolate industry. We shared that the festival is a brilliant way to experience Grenada through the lens of chocolate in a very hands-on and intimate way.
The most memorable moments throughout the festival were when someone had a pre-existing relationship with either Grenada and/or our chocolate discovered our stall. They were genuinely excited to see us and share their story of being in Grenada or meeting Mott Green and Edmund Brown from the Grenada Chocolate Company. It solidified that we as Grenadians often leave warmth in the hearts of people wherever we go because of our welcoming, generous and approachable nature.
Overall it was a fantastic experience to represent the festival and the island. I was honoured to share the good news about our blossoming chocolate industry with so many people from all over the US and the world, and to learn more about the infinite possibilities of chocolate.