Chocolate tours not just for treats

The chocolate tour offered by A Slice of Brooklyn takes visitors to four chocolate-makers around Brooklyn. “I love chocolate,” said Christine Dietz, who was treated to the tour by friends throwing her a bachelorette party. “But it’s really cool that we also get a bit of a tour of the city.”

But A Slice of Brooklyn’s chocolate tour is also part of a bigger trend. Confectioners and tour companies around the country are offering chocolate tours catering not just to the public’s sweet tooth but also to consumer interest in learning where the products they eat and drink come from.

EDUCATING CONSUMERS

“Customers care about what they put in their mouths — especially millennials and GenXers,” said Pam Williams, founder of the online academy Ecole Chocolat School of Professional Chocolate Arts.

And while everybody knows that wine comes from grapes, “very, very few actually understand that chocolate comes from the seeds of a tree,” said Williams.

FROM HERSHEY’S TO HIPSTERS

The granddaddy of U.S. chocolate tours is Hershey’s Chocolate World in Hershey, Pa. It’s hosted more than 100 million guests since opening in 1973.

But chocolate tours are offered in many other destinations around the country, from factories to visits with artisanal chocolatiers.

Mars Chocolate (makers of M&M’s, Snickers and Dove) offers tours and tastings of its Ethel M premium chocolate brand at the Ethel M factory in Henderson, Nev.

Theo Chocolate welcomes more than 50,000 visitors a year to its Seattle factory. The tour shows how the brand sources organic fairtrade beans.

SLICE OF BROOKLYN TOUR

The first stop on A Slice of Brooklyn’s chocolate tours is Jacques Torres’s shop in DUMBO.

In Red Hook, the tour strolls to a pier with a view of the Statue of Liberty before hitting Raaka Chocolate to see how the company’s artisanal bars are made.

Last stop: Li-Lac has been selling chocolates since 1923 and is known for creamy, old-school recipes but only recently relocated to the Brooklyn site.