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The Silky Oak
'Chocolate Thru The Ages'
Museum |
As if the temptations of handcrafted chocolates made with the best chocolate weren't enough, we have added yet another reason to visit The Silky Oak Chocolate Company by opening a museum devoted to that most seductive of foods.
Opened in October 2004 on the site of
The Silky Oak Chocolate Factory, The Silky Oak 'Chocolate Thru The Ages' Museum takes you through the history of chocolate back through the mists of time to its beginnings some 3000 years ago, and brings you through the centuries to the present.
The only comprehensive chocolate museum in the southern hemisphere, it tells the story of a food whose past is as rich as it's flavour, bringing it to life with colourfully-illustrated texts, life sized tableaux complete with sound effects, and a huge collection of chocolate paraphernalia dating from a 2000-year-old Mayan chocolate pot to modern commercial gimmicks.
From legendary days when Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl gave man the 'food of the gods', it follows chocolate to Europe where it became the fashionable drink of the well-to-do then in Victorian times suffered the indignity of additives such as brick dust, arsenic and seashells, before the eventual emergence of big scale manufacturers with familiar names like Cadbury Bourneville and Hersey's who took chocolate to the masses.
There is a fascinating array of items all connected with history of chocolate. Included are 400-year-old South American Coffee pots, fine European china and silver, beautifully-crafted boxes, long handled muddlers to spoon the thick melted chocolate 'drink' favoured by early European connoisseurs, and curiosities such as a 1900's American chocolate machine which for a cent dispensed a chocolate drop.
Allow anywhere from 30 mins to 2 hours (depending on your level of chocoholic addiction) to fully take in the history of chocolate from Bean to Bar.