Back to the Paris vacation series.

We started day 5 with breakfast at a McDonalds which is near the destination of our visit, the Gourmet Chocolate Museum.

We just had a crusty bun and coffee. The McDonalds that we visited had self serve kiosks for customers to place their orders (that is back in 2014). The McDonalds here is way more advance than what we had in Canada.

Fruit jam to go with the bun.

Our Paris Pass includes entrance to the Gourmet Chocolate Museum, otherwise it’s Euro6.50 for adult. The museum covers the history of cocoa, the story of the origin and the evolution of chocolate.

Some of the facts on the above fact sheet:

• 2 cocoa trees yield 20 cocoa pods annually
• 20 cocoa pods contain 800 beans
• 800 beans weigh about 750g which provide 600g cocoa paste with added sugar and cocoa butter

Various cocoa products.

Various molds and shapes of chocolate.

Candied sugar is made by crystallizing the sugar around threads drawn from one side of a copper pot to the other.

A display of tea cups from different ages.

Vessels for making cocoa drink.

Various Mayan ceramic pots where some were decorated with glyphs which have been interpreted as: ka-ka-wa. Hence, the word “cacao” or “cocoa” in English.

A recipe for making Tabasco Pepper Chocolate drink.

There was a demonstration of cocoa making which we attended.

At the end of the demonstration, we got to sample the end product.