Indulging curiosity at Scharffen Berger

I've now boldly walked in the footsteps of Curious George.

And whereas the images we remember from children's books are typically met with jarring contrast to their real-world equivalents, Berkeley's Scharffen Berger lives up to the expectation, long reinforced by childhood stories, that chocolate factories are quirky and fantastical places. Instead of a massive faceless production line hidden out in a low-rent Nowheresville, the Scharffen Berger factory is tucked into a small old brick building in a tree-lined neighborhood, and it's jammed full of antique European machines, plodding along noisily in their decadently inefficient and low-yield ways to produce the good stuff. And they let people in for tours.

One of the few real chocolatiers chocolate makers in the country, Scharffen Berger has only recently passed their ten-year mark, but early in their history, established themselves as something special. A 'best in the country' endorsement from the late Julia Child, followed by a more recent acquisition by Hershey (shhh!), and Scharffen Berger has taken the title as American chocolate bellwether.

Apparently, the secret has to do with sourcing properly fermented cacao, being very picky about it, and tailoring each tiny batch carefully, eschewing the more efficient quick-to-market methods employed by brands with larger market share to preserve. Oh, and ensuring that even their milk chocolate, long a boo-hooed lowbrow cousin style to the revered dark chocolate, has a higher percentage of cocoa solids than several of their dark chocolates - that doesn't hurt.

Having sat through several How It's Made tours and demonstrations for countless other foods, I was pleased to see that the Scharffen Berger tour is designed to enlighten even the most obsessed foodie. I had heard faint murmurs about this fermentation of cacao, but didn't know much about the process. To my delight, our Scharffen Berger guide provided a well-informed description, followed by photos, followed by actual beans to touch, and was able to answer questions intelligently!

He led us on a hairnetted walkthrough, reportedly the only one in the country that allows photos, then left us free to indulge our whims in the shop. No quick slick video and a high-pressure cattle prod into the gift shop here...although the siren song of chocolate pretty much does the job itself.

This is a passion-driven example of real food, well-deserving of its accolades, and with a factory as fun as its product. Other food manufacturers, take note!