End of another School year!

Our main class schedule for Kako Chocolate School comes to an end this weekend with the final two classes. We have a specialty Christmas Classes in early December, but apart from that, school is out! Which means I get my weekends back – something I am looking forward to now that the weather has improved and it stays light long into the evening now.

This post is really just a reflection on the school year that has been. What a year! With over 500 students, it was our busiest year yet – but given we are only in our second year, that was hardly surprising!

What do I enjoy most about teaching chocolate school?

• Sharing my passion
• Meeting like minded individuals who are as passionate as I am about chocolate
• Meet a huge variety of wonderful people
• Allows me to become ‘dignified’ much earlier in life thanks to the abundance of new grey hairs this year! Students will understand what I mean.

We have met some absolutely wonderful people, some of whom are off to start their own chocolate business and adventure. Hearing about the journeys people have been on is rather humbling at times – and seeing such a wide variety of people coming together through a shared bond (a love of chocolate) is also incredible. I know some students have made some very good friends through-out their learning journeys.

We had our share of mishaps this year – power outage recently meant we run a ganache class in the dark, using a camp gas cooker. A few ‘technical’ issues and the odd recipe disaster, but all in all, things ran pretty smoothly.

We have met some memorable people this year – most for the right reasons! Michelle and I have made some excellent friends through this process, and even have some students pop in regularly to chat, and sometimes give us food they have made, which is always most welcome! Did I mention we love people dropping in food?

While not every student will go on with chocolate making, a good number will and do. Our mission has been to educate people into a better class of chocolate, and attempt to ‘ignite’ our industry by training the next generation of chocolatiers in New Zealand – those who have been through our school are much more likely to collaborate with us and help work together to make the artisan chocolate industry much bigger than it is now.

Thank you to all who have attended our chocolate school this year, and for those who have been to all our classes – don’t worry, I have some new classes I am working on now for our 2015 year that will allow you to continue your learning journey.