Coffee and Chocolate expo

Imagine finding yourself in Willy Wonka's factory, but instead of all kinds of sweets, you find chocolate. Any and every kind you can think of - small slabs, big slabs; artisinal chocolate; chocolate with no milk and no sugar; chocolate with coffee , chocolate with chilli, chocolate with salt; berries in chocolate; fudge! 

Now imagine that waterfall and stream at the Wonka factory, but instead of being a river of chocolate, it is made out of the best and most delectable coffees on earth. And every time you scoop from the river, you get a different flavoured coffee! 

Lastly, imagine trees growing next to this coffee stream, with leaves, bark and fruit made of cookies! The perfect accessory to the perfect cup of coffee. Oh, delicious!

This past weekend's Coffee and Choc expo, held at Montecasino, was but a glimpse of what it must be like to get lost in the wondrous Willy Wonka world I just described. 

 {pic by Giro Coffees}

I took two of my girl friends to explore and what we found was truly Wonka'esque. Every stall had little tasters of what it had on offer and we engorged ourselves on every single tidbit.

THE COFFEE

Among the hundreds of stalls, we stopped at Mi Casa, Aroma, Bean There and Roast Republic - the freetrade brainchild of Leandri from Masterchef. 

{Pic Roast Republic}

Leandri and her sister, Seline, gave a workshop on making gourmet food with only coffee and chocolate, but bad timing on our part had us missing every single workshop, so we just chatted with the ladies afterwards. I asked Leandri if she's Afrikaans and everyone started laughing loudly. She's clearly not, haha. 

I had only one cup of coffee at the expo, which unfortunately had an incredibly strong salty aftertaste and put me off having more coffee entirely; I gave it to my friend Eleanor to finish. She was sniffing out all the freetrade stalls, but wanted to try all the special coffees too. Poor woman must have been buzzing until Tuesday!

THE CHOCOLATE

There was chocolate and temptation everywhere! We tried every single morsel we could try and got stuck at a stall that mixes olives with chocolates - sounds weird, but believe me it was amazing! I forget its name now and I didn't take a business card either. Also among the chocolate stalls was festival favourite Nova. I love their packaging and their different flavours, seriously amazing!

MY FAVOURITES

I really adored the La Coco C stall. The company sells chocolate, cookies, brownies, mixtures and wedding favours! From American choc chip, cranberry and white choc chip to a red velvet cookie mix {we bought one and it was amazing!} and all sorts of brownie mixes, including a chilli brownie mix, to honey, this stall had it all. The lovely decor caught my eye first and I just loved the visual appeal. Find them on: http://www.lacococ.com/

And I finally got to taste ice cream from Paul Ballen and meet the guy himself. I really mean it when I say that you HAVE NOT lived until you have tried these icy cold tub sized heavens! I had a vanilla and salted caramel ice cream, which Paul admitted was not his favourite, but it was certainly mine, albeit I have only ever had one flavour. Pretty nifty is that the ice cream has a date stamp on it, so you know that it is oh-so-fresh! Find him on www.paulshomemadeicecream.co.za

There is definitely a limit to the amount of coffee and chocolate you can consume in one day, and we most certainly passed that limit within the first half hour, but as they say: "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful!"