Today was our last day in Hamburg and since we blasted through the primary attractions in our first few days we were a bit at a loss for what to do. We really do need to slow down the pace as we’ll never survive at this rate in Ireland. The things we did today seemed to be all about our senses.
Deichstrasse near the Speicherstadt
First stop was the Chocoversum which is a chocolate museum in the Speicherstadt that explains where chocolate comes from and how it is processed. It includes lots of taste tests along the way including right out of a fresh pod before it has been fermented (disgusting), a freshly fermented bean (tasted like manure smells), after it has been roasted (bitter but the flavour is there), and during the mashing, mixing, and sweetening process (yummy). We also got to make our own chocolate by adding various bits like chili and salt to milk chocolate.
Mum making her chocolate
My yummy results
In learning about chocolate, we unfortunately found out what goes into the stuff we eat. Quality bitter-sweet chocolate is just cocoa mass (crushed up roasted beans) and sugar. They confirmed for me that white chocolate is disgusting (sorry just can’t stand the taste) as it is made of 26% milk powder, 46% sugar, and 28% cocoa butter (which is the fat pressed out of the cocoa mass so not really chocolate).
Breakdown of the contents of the most common chocolate products.
After a quick lunch at a lovely outside terrace in the Speicherstadt we were off to our next stop.
The next sense to be challenged was smell. We visited the world’s only spice museum, Spicy’s Gewürzemuseum which taught all about spices and herbs and where they come from.
Spicy’s spice museum
This evening we are pampering our hearing by going to an organ recital at the Michel (St Michael’s Cathedral). I’ll let you know what we think.