Chocolate completely filled the air in the Jacques chocolate factory, one of Belgium's most well-known chocolate producers and distributers. Each of the senses were stimulated beginning with smell, it was so potent that upon first whiff it almost stung your nose, but in a good way. After taking a few big breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth my lungs were filled with chocolate so much so that I almost tasted it.
After the tease of smell, we were greeted with a wafer drenched in warm chocolate from the fountain. The tour guide Kenith, who honestly did look like Willy Wonka and was dressed in a white lab coat and top hat had us all line up and on cue dip our plain wafers in the fountain which was producing hot chocolate flowing, of course I drenched my wafer. The chocolate was so smooth and still moist when it touched your tongue. I had always raved about the desserts at the Melting Pot Restaurant, but they have nothing on Jacques.
A tour of the factory followed where we could see the hundreds of conveyer belts which produced, molded, wrapped, and boxed the chocolate candies all you heard was the swishing of completed bars being dropped from the conveyer belt through the funnel and properly into the boxes to be shipped to their retrospective grocery stores. The longevity of the conveyer belts just covered in chocolate bars amazed me as the conveyed belt attendees strategically removed every 100th candy bar to be tested. So much so that they would take the 100th bar off break it into pieces and hand count how many hazelnuts for example were in that bar and if it didn't meet protocol that conveyer belt line was shutdown and rebooted to return back to the appropriate standards. It was incredible. As many machines as there were there, most of the work was still done by hand.
The gift shop was strategically placed at the end of the tour right outside of the factory where you had been surrounded by the smell of fresh chocolates all day and now just wanted to buy everything in sight. I purchased some milk chocolate with banana cream filling (it tasted like an ice cream sundae) and chocolate beer, which I have yet to taste but it seems like Belgium's two finest tastes beer and chocolate combined has to be delectable. The broken chocolates that had been strategically counted or removed for tiny defects were sold for incredibly cheap prices in huge bags- it was a steal. Almost everyone bought two or three of those discounted bags to munch on or use as shavings to melt in hot milk to make homemade Belgian hot cocoa.
It was funny the moment we all departed the factory our noses had been so accustomed to the divine smell of chocolate that the outdoor air of Eupen, Belgium (one of the only German speaking towns in Belgium) seemed to smell a lot more unpleasant then when we had entered.
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