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Video: Frederick Schilling & AMMA Chocolates at Salon du Chocolat

By on October 25, 2009 in Interviews & Video, On Chocolate & Cacao, Trips

In my second video interview from the Salon du Chocolat, meet Frederick Schilling, former founder of Dagoba Organic Chocolates, who was exceptionally in Europe to worldwide announce and promote his new project: AMMA Chocolates. His partner Diego Badaro owns 3 plantations in Brazil and together they just released their first batch of bars. Still in ‘beta’ though, but the talent and passion are already omnipresent in this first 75% bar, and it does taste promising!

Frederick shares his experience in this talk on the role of chocolate, his admiration, passion, and eagerness to see people react on real artisan chocolate. Enjoy the talk, and feel free to comment and share your feelings to chocolate! :)

P.S. And yes indeed, if you ordered my Choqoa 2009 Sampler, you too are getting this -for Europe- very very exclusive AMMA chocolate bar!

Video: Interview with Clay Gordon “The Chocophile” at Salon du Chocolat

By on October 24, 2009 in Interviews & Video, On Chocolate & Cacao, Trips

Clay Gordon is a man I’ve been long looking forward to meet. With his great book ‘Discover Chocolate‘, Clay claimes and justifies is title of ‘Chocophile’. He’s also running the community “The Chocolate Life” and that’s where Clay reached out to meet me during his visit in Europe. So here’s the very first of a coming video interview series from Le Salon du Chocolat 2009 in Paris!

This US based evangelist for fine cacao was currently doing a chocolate tour in Europe, including the London Chocolate Week. I arrived at his hotel to meet him in the lobby, and after our first real life hello, we strolled towards the Salon area at opening time. After I registered and picked up a press card (hey, I blog!) we sat down wih a good coffee in the lounge and continued talking on all things chocolate. During this very inspiring chat Clay Gordon passionately talked about the chocolate industry, people enjoying chocolate, people having fun tasting & trying pairings, the required craftmanship to achieve great tasting bars, and some of the secrecy behind the cacao scenes. Clay truely knows every angle to cacao!

After more than an hour we ended the personal talking and I could -ahum- do my first video interview ever. I rapidly had big fun holding my Sony HD cam and I feel it’s a great synthesis of our meetup. Enjoy and you will sure grab for a good chocolate bar after his thoughts on passion, inspiration, and sharing fun.
So here’s the 10 minute interview with Clay ‘The Chocophile’ Gordon! I’m curious for your reactions as well.