Always on the hunt for new things to learn and local experiences to blog about, we took our families to a Vancouver chocolate tasting class at artisan chocolate boutique Koko Monk.

Hosted by Koko Monk owner and chocolate maker Paul Dincer, the private “raw chocolate tasting and decoding class” took place after store hours at Koko Monk’s new second location at 2883 W. Broadway in Kitsilano.

There were six of us at the class (that’s the minimum number required to run the private event): my boyfriend and I, our moms, his little sister, and my aunt. Over delicious mugs of Venezuelan dark hot chocolate flavoured with orange zest and a generous squirt of whipped cream, the session began with a colourful storytelling history about the origins of chocolate, starring the raw ingredient of cacao.