A place about and full of chocolate – I am quite sure that I am not the only one who is feeling like this must be some sort of outlet of paradise. While Cologne features the amazing Chocolate Museum (Schokoladenmuseum), I was really curious how it will be like to have a chocolate tour driven by another company. Hachez hosts the Chocoversum in Hamburg – so that I just had to visit it.

 

Chocoversum by Hachez – Location & Admission

The Chocoversum by Hachez is located at the Meßberg street, which is located South of the key shopping district Mönckebergstraße. It is likely just a few steps away from some other attractions you visit anyway (including easy walking distance location like the Speicherstadt with the Elbe Philharmoic Hall and the Miniatur Wunderland, Germany’s best rated attraction). Meßberg is, however, also an Underground station, which is just a short walk away from the chocolate place.

During my visit, you could pay significantly less for a visit if you pre-book your tour (including a fixed tour slot) online.  The standard adult ticket, when you walk in is 19 Euro for the 90 minute tour – however, you are quite lucky if you manage to grap a free slot the same day when you walk in. There are also family tickets. During my visit the Chocoversum was open from 10:00 to 18:00 hrs, Wednesday to Sunday. As the place is very popular, there were lines outside the museum and shop, split by tour and shopping customers. Tours are typically in German, but there are English ones as well.

 

Chocoversum by Hachez – The Visit

I have to say that i felt that the tour already started bad as the waiting area was just too small for pandemic regulations – or vice said, they accepted too many people in one tour in my point of view. Especially the (mandatory) lockers lead to a very narrow situation. The tour is moving from section to section, where there were either marked standing spots or seats with marked positions. The first stop was about the plantation and cultivation of cocoa. In contrast to the Cologne chocolate museum, there is no natural exhibit or at least a plastic one, which made the introduction not too good to understand.

 

One of the key events, making an own bar of chocolate in the Schokowerkstatt (“Chocolate Workshop”) is in fact quite early in the tour – the key reason is that you select ingredients and a type of chocolate (milk, dark or white chocolate), which is then given to you in warm / liquid condition. The chocolate needs to cool down in the cooling station for some 45 to 60 minutes. Somehow, this section was fun – but the desks, where you were standing at, were in fact too small for the number of people. On the second picture, you see two marked positions, which was in fact shoulder-to-shoulder.

The next section was about the importance of cocoa trade and about the producing country. The guide made a huge emphasis on child labor on the plantations. Interestingly, she did not mention that Hachez is having very active control on that issue. As the tours are timed, you practically have the same time at each position, so that the groups move harmonically. However, some of the positions after the Schokowerkstatt simply felt too long. The standing spots for different positions also mixed for different positions of the tour, which was then explaining the production process of chocolate. Actually, this part was quite interesting and illustrative – but having multiple groups in the same group and having a guide which was not fit for her job (see below) made it very painful.

The cool thing about this part of the tour was definitely that you could taste any sub-product of the chocolate production, from the bean to the final chocolate bar. Unfortunately, the guide repeatedly grabbed her mask at the interior and acted very clumsy. She more and more tried to become more entertaining by doing a lot of jokes, which finally made the tour unbearable.

At the end of the tour, you finally received your self-made chocolate. The guide said goodbye and excused that she had a too long party night the night before. That is just terrible attitude – people came from quite far away to do this tour, I felt that she was just disrespectful to the visitors.

 

Chocoversum by Hachez – The Store

A chocolate store is indeed a cool thing – and you could even buy some of the sub-products of chocolate production there. However, I felt that the prices in the store partially had a ridiculously high level – if you do not want to have a special Chocoversum souvenir, I would rather recommend to try one of the chocolate stores around or a good food department.

 

Chocoversum by Hachez – My View

I might be the worst possible reviewer the Chocoversum by Hachez could have: being from Cologne, the Chocolate Museum there is simply outstanding. The only thing I really favored about the Chocoversum was the potential to try all sub-products of chocolate production, which was indeed cool. Doing a bar of chocolate on your own is of course cool, but had lacks of organization. No more words about the guide – I definitely feel that another tour guide would have lead to an at least rating around 3.3 to 3.5 overall. A tourist attraction can simply not afford this poorly performing employee. The tour felt too lengthy towards the end – there is just not that much to show to have sufficient time to cool down the produce.

 

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