The Chocolatiers of The Mekong Delta

Exploring the past and future of Vietnamese chocolate The Vietnamese have a saying: Phi cua Troi, muoi doi chang co, meaning “Waste what God gives you and the next ten generations will go without.” Likely no one has mastered the art of multi-purposing quite like the humble people of the Mekong Delta where absolutely nothing goes to waste. In a small riverside workshop … Read more

The Extinction of Chocolate

It’s a scary possibility, but it’s also not quite as simple as that At the turn of 2018, the internet melted at the news that chocolate would be going out of existence in 40 years. Supposedly because of rising global temperatures caused by global warming. It’s all well and good to get upset about polar bears, but chocolate! Where’s the humanity? The original article published … Read more

Skin Deep, Dark & Delicious

The skinny on chocolate’s therapeutic benefits Ever since the first Europeans encountered cacao, they’ve been documenting its use as medicine. The Badianus Manuscript (dating back to 1552) recorded that Mesoamericans used cocoa derivatives as remedies for everything from angina and constipation to gout and hemorrhoids. As it made its way over to the Old World, kings and cardinals also saw the therapeutic benefits of chocolate. In a 1671 … Read more

The Lady Rides Again

Godiva, a luxury chocolatier, finds a sweet spot in Vietnam They say diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but whoever first coined that phrase must have never tasted a piece of premium Belgian chocolate before. Why Belgium? Because there is a broad consensus that the world’s best chocolates come from Belgium, more specifically, because of a certain company that started there … Read more

Where Chocolate Is Born

Who among us hasn’t occasionally craved the “Food of the Gods” as cacao’s (the chocolate bean) scientific name translates to? If you’ve ever wondered how chocolate is made, from bean to bar, Park Hyatt Saigon’s master class introduces a chocolate tour on September 21, 2013 from 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM. Stops include an excursion … Read more