Portland, Oregon is a great city for chocolate. While in town last week, I visited The Meadow, Cacao, and the Creo Chocolate factory and shop. Creo makes wonderful chocolate with Ecuadorian beans sourced directly from the farmer and offers a tour of their facility.
The 1.5 hour tour (ours stretched to 2 hours, no complaints!) was well worth it and proved to be fun and informative. We happened to be there on a day when Tim, one of the founders, was giving the tour, and he explained their process in detail, from their trips to the farm and importing the beans to the in-house roasting, grinding, and conching. He led us around the tiny factory space to show us the different machines they use and answered questions about the chocolate and the manufacturing process. He has an expansive knowledge of cacao and a welcoming, unpretentious attitude. This would be a great experience for anyone, chocophile and casual consumer alike.
The tour costs $20 per person and includes a make-your-own bar session, where you can add ingredients like freeze-dried raspberries, cacao nibs, or finishing salt to a freshly poured bar of dark chocolate. We also got to try a sip of cacao fruit juice (beautiful - like a fruity, honey-sweetened lemonade but less acidic), cacao tea, plain roasted cacao nibs, and one of their Black Lava Salted Caramel truffles.
If you don’t have time for the tour, stop by the shop and café. There are samples of almost every bar they make and you can purchase the full range.
In the café, we tried their marvelous drinking chocolate, made with half chocolate and half heavy cream – there is perhaps no more sublime combination on earth. They also offer brownies, truffles, hot chocolate, iced chocolate, and more!
Learn more about Creo at their website and book your tour at the link below.
Creo Chocolate
Tour info: https://creochocolate.com/classes/
122 NE Broadway in Portland, Oregon Open Tuesday through Thursday: 9:00am - 4:00pm Friday and Saturday: 9:00am - 6:00pm Closed Sunday & Monday
(503) 477-8927
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