Yes, and it’s a must-visit. You will become addicted
Do you love chocolate? So does entrepreneur, Carlos Trejo. After several successful businesses in San Jose del Cabo, when COVID came, Carlos wanted to find something new. He was interested in learning to make chocolate, and when his eight-year-old grandson told his wife that his grandpa should make chocolate, the die was cast. Carlos went to San Luis Potosi to study with Maestra Norma Orozco, the General Director of The Mexican School of Chocolate and Confectionary. Norma Orozco is the top consultant throughout Latin America on both making chocolate and building a business around it. As this was during COVID, Carlos had 15 days of training alone with her, not only in the history of chocolate and how to make it, but in how to have a successful business.
Carlos returned to San Jose del Cabo to open the Chocolate Factory in Plaza San Jose on Blvd Antonio Mijares, a block and a half from the plaza. The shop is an homage to chocolate. The walls are covered with a mural that tells the history of cacao and chocolate created by the Olmecs in 1500 BC. It tells the story of the Olmecs teaching the Mayans how to make a chocolate drink and how the cacao beans were currency at the time. The Mayans taught the Spanish as they invaded Mexico, which resulted in chocolate and chocolate drinks becoming a delicacy for the elite in Spain. But wasn’t until 1795 that the first milk chocolate bar was created by Rich and Nestlé. Most of us think of chocolate as coming from Belgium or Switzerland, but it was discovered and created in Mexico thousands of years earlier.
The chocolate factory makes its own chocolate with over 20 varieties of stuffed chocolates, 100% and 70% chocolate bars, chocolate-covered almonds and even health products made with cacao. You can watch the process through the glassed-in factory room just inside the front door. Just walking through the store is an education about the benefits of cacao and chocolate. However, if you really want to learn about chocolate, you can join the Chocolate Factory’s two-hour experience to learn to make your own chocolate. In a special room on the second floor of Plaza San Jose is a room where up to 12 people can experience each of the steps in making chocolate: roasting, removing the shells from the cacao, grinding the cacao into paste, turning the paste into chocolate, adding the flavors, and putting it into the molds to cool in a refrigerator. The experience provides not only the history but the actual process, and you leave with your own chocolates! And, this experience is only $50 US.
Carlos Trejo and his staff have brought a unique experience and products to Baja. If you are a chocolate lover, visiting the store in San Jose del Cabo is a must.
For more information about the Chocolate Factory visit their website at https://www.chocola-tre.com/en/ or visit them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/chocolatre.bcs