Zimt for Everybody!

Hi Everyone,

Tomorrow is the long awaited day- Zimt Artisan Chocolates chocolate bars will be available in retail stores! Two to start:  Nice Shoes (on Fraser, between 19th and 20th) and Greens Natural and Organic Market (on West Broadway, near Maple Street). 

I can't believe it- this is the start of something very exciting. 

A couple of things... maybe I'll just give a brief update on how the day went.

So on Wednesday, I was feeling pretty beat. I made a solemn vow to myself that I would stay in my house all day on Friday, maybe even in my room, and avoid the rest of humanity, and just recoup. Needless to say, that definitely did not happen. I was running around today like crazy, as is my custom, and spent an unexpected 4 hours in the kitchen. While I was driving (to what was supposed to be with the end-goal of home), I was thinking about some of the Meine Minze bars I had been packaging earlier that day. I wasn't happy with them.   A couple of them had been broken- not badly, just once between the pieces, but they really weren't as perfect as I wanted them to be. I was tired. I didn't have any extras. I didn't want to make any more. I tried to tell myself that, hey, the ingredients are fantastic- so what if they're a little broken? That's how they are going to end up anyway... (unless people eat gourmet chocolate bars in one bite. Doubtful.). 

But I just couldn't convince myself. 

What if the person buying that bar had been on a cleanse or something, deprived of really good chocolate, and had been so looking forward to a peppermint ganache filled bar, only to get something that would not be totally perfect? Or, what if, a mom were buying a Meine Minze for her health-food loving kid, only to find out that it was broken way after she bought it? What if a skeptic bought it, saw the quality was less than supreme, and then became only more skeptical? What if people are spending their hard-earned money on what has been described as being the highest quality product, and it is just not up to standards?

... that wouldn't do. 

So, it was off to the kitchen. To make 4 more Meine Minze bars. And, I thought, a few more of the other varieties  just in case they were not perfect enough either. 

I can't really believe that making 16 chocolate bars took 4 hours, but I look at it this way- it is an investment. It isn't like I do this on a regular basis, and it isn't like I will need to do this on a regular basis. This is a new product line- it's time to set the standard for what will be offered in the future. 

Anyway.... none of the Meine Minze bars should be broken now. I realized that I am two short of the Chocolate Coconut Fudge bars, so I will be heading to the kitchen at the church tomorrow morning to work on those two (I hope it does not take that long.) before I head to Greens and Nice. 

Lots more to mention, but I will just have to close with this- check whichever bar you get carefully- because you may just win another Zimt Artisan Chocolates bar! (Kind of like a golden ticket from Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, but I can't offer that yet, because if I were to give people a tour of my chocolate factory, it would go something like this:

"So, this is the corner where I store my ingredients and small equipment. The storage containers are made of recycled plastic. I bought them in the States after finding them listed on the Office Depot website, and finding that the location in Richmond that went out of business did not have any more. Instead of a massive chocolate water fall, I have a chocolate melter I spent my life savings on which can melt up to 6 kg of chocolate- both the waterfall and the melter are equally impressive, I'm sure. I was my dishes in that sink before putting them through that dish washer. And over here is where I put my laptop- I try to watch foreign movies or videos on technical analysis while I make the chocolate and fillings, but the industrial refrigerators are usually too loud for me to hear what's going on, because this is an HP, and, well, the speaker quality is inferior. I just bought it because they mentioned ethical labour practices on their website. I don't have any full-time Oompa Loompas. but my mom sometimes stops in on her way home from work to say hello and help with dishes. ... there is no glass elevator, and don't try licking the walls, please- it's regular paint, not flavoured wall paper. Questions?")

Hope you can stop by Greens and/or Nice! Lots of locations are yet to come.... and do I ever need to plan for that!

Happy Saturday =)

emma