Projet Chocolat

Projet Chocolat Elevating the culture of chocolate. projetchocolat.com

A few of the vintage cacao botanical engravings in the Projet Chocolat collection. The one with the olive branch and cac...
06/18/2026

A few of the vintage cacao botanical engravings in the Projet Chocolat collection. The one with the olive branch and cacao pod is my favorite because it represents both sides of my family. 🌿





How many people working in the chocolate industry currently have a taste & smell disorder? I’ve recently asked this ques...
06/15/2026

How many people working in the chocolate industry currently have a taste & smell disorder?

I’ve recently asked this question to a few of my colleagues. It’s surprising what they shared. A recount of a chocolate maker who made everything too intense to the point where several customers walked away with burning sensations in their mouths and floral inclusions so overwhelming that customers felt as if they were swallowing perfume. I suggested the maker might have a taste or smell disorder.

Another colleague complained about their lead chocolatier making everything so bland from bonbons to bars that they had to taste everything beforehand to make certain the inclusions were detected.

It’s not just chocolate makers and chocolatiers. It’s educators and customers. It’s time to have this realistic discussion openly in the chocolate community. It’s one of the many elephants in the chocolate room.

What are your thoughts and have you thoroughly discussed this topic with the definitions and reasons for taste & smell disorders in your flavor classes?




Sometimes I like to bring out our antique table with a vintage lace table cloth and do my work outside. It’s very Southe...
06/14/2026

Sometimes I like to bring out our antique table with a vintage lace table cloth and do my work outside. It’s very Southern to be on the front porch playing music, reading a book, or talking across front porches with your neighbor. You see people walking in the neighborhood waving hello and looking at everyone’s garden for ideas.
Right now, it’s getting hotter so mornings and evenings are best. Here, I’m wrapping chocolate gifts and reading a vintage book on chocolate by Knapp.





I judge chocolate by its cover.Not because packaging equals quality but because it usually tells me something true about...
06/11/2026

I judge chocolate by its cover.

Not because packaging equals quality but because it usually tells me something true about how a maker thinks. These bars and their packaging I keep returning to because they don’t perform. Their design feels authentic, for lack of a better term, whether it’s spare or ornate. Nothing is there to impress the consumer into buying. Its true expression of the maker or company.

Timeless is the word I keep reaching for. Not trendy and not designed by a next door neighbor who you made a trade. Or even worse, not designed by AI. Just genuinely being themself or a reflection of the company.

1. I like that you bring in your cultural roots in a classic fun yet modern sense. The colors are perfection! I look forward to what you are bringing out next.
2. The block print is timeless and brings in history. I like that I feel like I’m getting a print with each bar. The 💙 one was my favorite!
3. Your bars are wrapped like a gift ready to give. The size is perfect and the wax stamp is a personal touch. You have always been on my top list of design.
4. is timeless. They never have to change because they understand the beauty of something that lasts forever.
5. You allow the bar to be the canvas and the logo to be the signature. Only someone who comes from art understands the visual and you do!
6. Your design is personal, fun, and not the typical watercolor style that is trendy. I love the nod to cacao stamps and I prefer your watercolor style.
7. I love the new wrappers. The Suffolk pink is unique and historical and your paper texture is the best! I love the feel and weight of it. It’s that kind of detail that sets you apart.




The mancerina has one of the most quietly brilliant origin stories in chocolate history. Created in 17th-century Spain b...
06/07/2026

The mancerina has one of the most quietly brilliant origin stories in chocolate history. Created in 17th-century Spain by the Marquis of Mancera, Viceroy of Peru. He designed it to hold a cup of drinking chocolate steady when noticed the women spilling chocolate on their skirts. The Mancerina is literally a plate with a raised ring collar to lock the cup in place.

The most well known painting to capture this is Jean-Étienne Liotard’s La Belle Chocolatière, 1743. A woman carries a black lacquer tray with a mancerina. For centuries this image was reproduced on every tin of Walter Baker & Company chocolate, making it arguably the most recognizable chocolate painting in the Western world. Many people have seen it their entire lives without knowing what the object in her hands was called, or the centuries of design ingenuity it represented.

On a recent trip to Valencia, I had the privilege of visiting the Museo Nacional de Cerámica, where several mancerinas are on display. Seeing them in person was a visual treat. The craftsmanship and the way form and function were treated emphasized everything I believe about these objects. They are not kitchenware. They are design objects and pieces of art that happen to hold chocolate.

I’m fortunate to have 10 vintage mancerinas in my private collection, each one a small study in how a culture valued the ritual of drinking chocolate enough to engineer beauty around it. This fall, they’ll be part of the chocolate museum I’ve been building, opening fall 2026 in partnership with , Nashville’s Indigenous Arts Festival. Make sure to sign up for my newsletter and to follow !

1. Mancerina y Jícara, Alcora. Liza. Serie de Flores naturalists. 1750 - 1790
2. The Chocolate Girl, Jean Étienne Liotard, 1743
3. Mancerina, L’Alcora. Terra de p**a, 1770 - 1810
4. Mancerinas, c. 1930 Projet Chocolat collection
5. Mancerinas, c. 1930 Projet Chocolat collection
6. 18th century Valencian tile
7. Mancerina, 18th c., Museo de Ceramica, Valencia
8. 18th century coconut cups in silver,
9. The Chocolate Girl, Liotard, 1743





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. 🌿🍫





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