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- The Chocology Journal
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Sometimes the best Chocology experiences begin with a question.
This one began with Matteo, an Italian Stony Brook student who has been coming to Chocology for the past few years.
His roommates drink Chinese tea, and somewhere in our conversations came the idea:
What would happen if we brought Chinese tea and fine chocolate together?
I didn't know.
Which, of course, made me want to find out.
And this is one of the things I love most about personally knowing the people who make the chocolates I share. I can pick up the phone and call someone.
So I called Liang Wang of Kesshō Chocolate.
We talked about Chinese tea. We talked about chocolate. We talked about what might work together, and Liang helped me select some fascinating chocolates for us to explore.
I knew far less about Chinese tea than the students who gathered around my table.
And I loved that.
They knew their tea.
I knew my chocolate.
And Liang had shared her knowledge of both with me.
As the afternoon unfolded, I began to realize how much the worlds of fine Chinese tea and fine chocolate have in common.
Where something grows matters.
How it is harvested and processed matters.
Tradition matters.
Craftsmanship matters.
And the people behind it matter.
A tea isn't simply tea any more than a 77% chocolate is simply dark chocolate.
Both can carry a sense of place. Both can change dramatically through processing. And both reward us when we slow down enough to really notice.
We began with four teas and chocolates chosen to give us very different experiences—from Jasmine Tea with Kesshō Guava Lime Dark Chocolate to Shui Xian with Kesshō Black Sesame White Chocolate.
But we didn't stay with the plan for very long.
Soon chocolates were moving around the table.
What happens if we try this one?
What about this tea?
Go back and taste that again.
We discovered that Fruition Brown Butter Milk Chocolate with Wuyi Yancha was wonderful.
And Kesshō's Black Sesame White Chocolate became something of a wildcard. We originally had a place for it in the tasting, but once we started experimenting, it seemed to find something interesting to say with almost every tea.
Sip • Taste • Sip.
What do you notice now?
Sometimes we agreed.
Sometimes we didn't.
And that's where things became really interesting.
Then came a discovery I never could have planned.
Matteo was reading the package of Kesshō Black Sesame White Chocolate when he recognized the word Sesamo.
Sessamo in Italian.
And then, looking at the cultures gathered around our table, he made the connection:
“Italian and Chinese—just like us.”
It was such a simple comment.
But it captured the afternoon perfectly.
We had started by gathering Chinese tea and chocolate.
Somewhere along the way, we had also gathered languages, cultures, traditions, knowledge and people.
This is what discovery looks like.
There was one person missing from our table.
And yet, throughout the afternoon, we kept saying the same thing:
“It feels like Liang is here with us.”
And in a way, she was.
Because I know Liang personally, I wasn't simply taking a chocolate off a shelf and guessing what to do with it. Liang and I talked. She had shared her knowledge. We'd discussed the teas, the chocolates and the possibilities.
As we tasted, experimented and moved her chocolates from one tea to another, we found ourselves talking about things Liang had shared with me. Her knowledge had become part of the conversation around our table.
So when we opened those Kesshō bars, a little bit of Liang came to the table with them.
That's something I treasure about craft chocolate.
There are people behind these bars.
Growers. Makers. People with knowledge, traditions and stories.
And relationships.
Liang may not have been physically sitting at the table, but she was very much part of our gathering.
I’ve been thinking a lot about gathering this Harvest season.
And looking around that table, I realized just how much we had gathered in one afternoon.
Tea and chocolate, certainly.
But also knowledge. Traditions. Cultures. Curiosity. And conversations that none of us could have planned.
Everyone brought something different to the table—and we all left with something we didn't have when we arrived.
That may be my favorite kind of Harvest.
A very special thank you to Liang and Kesshō Chocolate, and to Mateo and everyone around the table who came ready to share what they knew—and curious enough to discover something new.
I have a feeling this won't be our last Chinese Tea + Chocolate gathering.
Gather • Taste • Discover • Connect.
Smell • Melt • Notice • Savor
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