Projet Chocolat

Projet Chocolat Elevating the culture of chocolate. projetchocolat.com

I can spot when someone comes from corporate or tech and brings the whole framework with them. Scalability is their firs...
06/03/2026

I can spot when someone comes from corporate or tech and brings the whole framework with them. Scalability is their first question and not the last.
This is what they know and how they were trained.

But craft chocolate was built by farmers, scientists, and enthusiasts who rejected the standardized model on purpose. When you apply a corporate or tech lens to that world, you flatten it.
The format is always the same and it’s like trying to contain something that was never meant to fit.
The tastings that land right now aren’t the ones that scaled the fastest.

They’re the ones with something to say. There’s a point of view. I’ve had the great fortune of standing beside people who know how to tell a story. They understand cadence, the uncomfortable pause to make a point. They embody the story and actually love history instead of muttering facts.

If you want to learn how to tell a story it doesn’t have to cost you a dime but it does take time and practice. Find a mentor. Someone outside of the industry who’s not in the craft chocolate bubble. They’ll have the perspective that is obvious to everyone else who’s not in the bubble.





To the students from my most recent Chocolate Art History class, you may recall our section on murals and the tiled choc...
05/31/2026

To the students from my most recent Chocolate Art History class, you may recall our section on murals and the tiled chocolate kitchen in Valencia, Spain. I recently had the opportunity to visit the Museo Nacional de Cerámica y Artes Suntuarias González Martí, where I discovered that the kitchen installation has been updated since we last discussed it.

The current room presents a reconstruction of a Valencian domestic interior, anchored by 18th and 19th century tiles depicting culinary scenes from the early 19th century. Look carefully at the upper register. You’ll notice a row of copper chocolate pots characteristic of the period. These were elegant functional objects that also signal chocolate’s status as a staple of bourgeois domestic life by this point in history.

A large panel tile depicting the preparation of drinking chocolate anchors the display, offering a rare glimpse into the material choreography of the kitchen. It asks us to think of who made it, how, and with what tools.

Note also the presence of mortars in the composition. Their inclusion is no accident. By the 18th and 18th centuries, chocolate had transitioned from a luxury curiosity to a broadly consumed beverage. The mortar, the workhorse of the pre-industrial kitchen, would have been central to its preparation.

If you are a student of art and or chocolate, I highly recommend you see this museum. It truly is a visual delight! Stay tuned for more posts featuring more chocolate artifacts at the museum from my visit.





I think of the cacao vessel as architecture. Not just metaphorically but literally. Architecture is the art and science ...
05/29/2026

I think of the cacao vessel as architecture. Not just metaphorically but literally. Architecture is the art and science of shaping functional structures with intention, and that is exactly what pre-Columbian and pre-contact civilizations did when they formed these vessels from earth. They brought the same knowledge, the same deliberateness, the same understanding of space and form that raised pyramids and temples. With clay they made it into something small enough to hold in two hands.

The cacao vessel didn’t transcend its material. It elevated it. Clay became structure and structure became the sacred made tangible. Here are some examples of the different shapes and forms.

Cover - Chimú cacao vessel, Projet Chocolat private collection
1. Vessels with cacao traces from Valdivia (A, B, C, D), Chorrera (E), and Jama Coaque (F, G) cultures of Ecuador, and the Calima Ilama (H, I) of Colombia.
2. Maya Cacao Vessel, Tzakal u K’ahk’ Hutal Ek’, lord of Acanceh, 600 - 900 AD
3. La Chocolatera de Río Azul, locked lidded, Guatemala, 460 CE
4. Maya painted ceramic cacao pod vessel
5. Pre-Columbian cacao vessel, Projet Chocolat private collection
6. Ancestral Puebloan cacao cylinder jars, Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, 800 AD
7. Lidded Tripod Cylinder Vessel with Head of Cacao Deity, Guatemala, Petén, Naranjo or vicinity, Maya, early 5th century, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
8. Engraved spouted jar, Maya 50 BCE–100 CE, Guatemala or Mexico, Mesoamerica, Indurated limestone





Did you know there was a period in history where there was a time set aside for drinking chocolate? In 18th century Fran...
05/15/2026

Did you know there was a period in history where there was a time set aside for drinking chocolate?

In 18th century France, high society often called it le chocolat du matin or simply le chocolat at court. During that time, drinking chocolate was served in the morning. Prior to that in the 17th century, the Spanish time set aside for drinking chocolate was commonly called the agasajo. The chocolate was spiced with saffron, cinnamon, rosewater, and orange zest and it was a social ritual around snacks and hospitality.

Think about it. Chocolate had its own hour and occasion. Imagine if we continued this tradition at home!

I also want to mention that my friend Mackenzie Rivers, craft chocolate maker and founder of has a new drinking chocolate subscription called The Cacao Barista. Check out her website to order. You have the option to get a zine with the subscription. I plan to create my own chocolate time at home when my first subscription arrives. Full disclosure: I did not get money to promote this subscription, I paid full price for my subscription, and she had no idea I was making this post.

📸





I’ve been thinking about this 1930s Turtox biological classroom chart of Theobroma cacao. It’s a great visual of scienti...
05/11/2026

I’ve been thinking about this 1930s Turtox biological classroom chart of Theobroma cacao. It’s a great visual of scientific illustration from a time when a classroom poster was its own kind of art object. Cacao pods, flowers, cross sections, the entire tree, and beans are labeled.
This fall, it’s coming to the Projet Chocolat shop along with posters, prints, cards, books, and chocolate too! I can’t wait to share it with you. 🌿🍫





05/02/2026

Grid of inspiration 🤎
Which one is your favorite?

1. Pe-Columbian cacao vessel
2. 1940s Chocolate school chart
3. Original German cacao and olive branch botanical engraving, 1792
4. Vintage Mexican molinillo, 1930
5. Dried cacao pod, wood carved cacao pod, bone cacao pod, and gold cacao pod
6. Making drinking chocolate





This is what functional art looks like. An object classic in design that for centuries no on...
04/24/2026

This is what functional art looks like.

An object classic in design that for centuries no one found a reason to change it. Art is not just reserved for something inside a frame. It can be useful and functional in a humble kitchen, carved with intention, for frothing drinking chocolate. I want to challenge you to look again at the molinillo. I put together slides so you can see it in a 17th-century Spanish still life, held up high in an intricate engraving, and held into the arms of a chocolate historian.

The molinillo will make an appearance in an upcoming exhibit, The Indigenous Story of Cacao.

Chocolate Museum opening fall 2026. Please sign up for the Projet Chocolat low traffic newsletter for opening. Link in bio.





Something shifted in Santa Fe. It’s always been a place to transform. A place for renewal and it’s where I got to meet a...
04/18/2026

Something shifted in Santa Fe. It’s always been a place to transform. A place for renewal and it’s where I got to meet all the wonderful women in this post. This year’s Santa Fe Women’s Cacao Summit was filled with joy, peace, laughter, new information, stories of wisdom, beautiful views, and lots of chocolate. A big thank you to for making the most delicious nourishing food! I’m so grateful to for moderating our women’s panel with Mackenzie Rivers and Bonnie Bennett .
We were fortunate to have Dr. Patricia Crown join us as our featured speaker sharing information we’d never heard before on cacao, Chaco Canyon, and the Southwest. Plus a surprise visit from ! It just would not have been a summit without all the women who attended. Gosh, I miss everyone. And I miss the women who could not make it. You know who you are. We were thinking of you the whole time.



What if I were to tell you that the Metate is art? Would you agree? Would you hesitate? I’ve been thinking a lot lately ...
03/30/2026

What if I were to tell you that the Metate is art? Would you agree? Would you hesitate? I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this ancient stone tool and how it continues to be the canvas for chocolate making by hand.
I want us all to reconsider the utilitarian art form and how indigenous cultures don’t separate art from their lives. It’s seamless and can be found in the simplest of objects. The metate is the inspiration and centerpiece for an upcoming museum exhibit this fall. Until then, a set of slides to inspire:

1. Frothing of chocolate: Sahagun, Historia general (Florentine codex) lib. 10 f. 69v detail
2. Folio from the Codex Mendoza, a 16th-century
3. Using the Metate to make chocolate
4. Cacao Exhibit, Robertson County Museum, November 2025
5. Ceremonial Metates, 400 AD - 600 AD
6. Projet Chocolat Metate photo by Brooke
7. Original lantern slide of Filipino Chinese chocolate maker, 1895 - collection of Projet Chocolat
8. Illustration Le Bon Usage du Thé, du Caffé, et du Chocolat by Nicolas de Blegny, 1687





From the Projet Chocolat collection: 1. Traitez Nouveaux & Curieux du Cafe du Thé et du Chocolate, Dufour 1693 edition2...
03/10/2026

From the Projet Chocolat collection:

1. Traitez Nouveaux & Curieux du Cafe du Thé et du Chocolate, Dufour 1693 edition
2. Children’s Mexican Molinillo, 1940
3. Pavillion du Cacao Blooker, California exposition held in San Fransisco Gate Park, 1894
4. French Bonbon Bag, Epicerie Confiserie Centrale, 117 Grande Rue
5. Parfum de Toilette, Femme Rochas, 1920 for packaging inspiration
6. English Silver Biscuit Basket, 1940 for holding truffles
7. Phillip’s Digestible Cocoa advert, 1901 30 Platt Street, New York




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