I worked at a chocolate festival - Lifestyle Monday
Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,
I told you guys a while ago now that I worked at a chocolate festival over the February half term holiday but I never went into full detail about what exactly it was that I did so I thought that I would do that today. Basically because my mum bakes and cooks for a living and runs her own business, she got told by one of her friends, who was also in the catering business, that she would be hosting a chocolate festival in Histon over the half term holiday. My mum's friend is the owner of Bumble and Oak, a small business that sells artisan chocolate in Cambridge, and she decided to set up the Cambridge Chocolate Festival to celebrate all the chocolate makers and lovers in the area. It turns out that since this was the first time that Cambridge Chocolate Festival had happened, the team was a bit short of staff so my mum asked me and Alice if we would be willing to help out her friend during the weekend. Alice already had work over the half term so she didn't end up going but I was the one who went. Overall, I found that I was a great experience. I know very little about the details of chocolate and if I'm being honest, it's not my area of expertise or something that I am particularly interested in. However, I found it to be a good learning experience in terms of work. I was helping this lovely lady Anisa, who was from Bangledesh, set up her stall and I also set up all the products from Bumble and Oak at the stall as well. I also was selling all the chocolates, cutting up samples of the different bars, and interacting with the customers first hand. It took a little while for me to get the hang of everything; I was a little unsure with how to use the debit card device at first, but eventually I got into the flow of selling the items and it was pretty easy. Anisa was demonstrating to everyone who was entering the tent, how the process of transforming the chocolate from bean to bar worked and everyone seemed to be pretty interested in that. I also answered (to the best of my ability, considering my limited knowledge on chocolate) people's queries and questions that they had about Anisa's chocolate such as the percentage and their origin. I came across some nice people and some rather ignorant people too. One man said that he thought some of the chocolate bars were sold at too high a price for what they were, unaware of the fact that as he told me this, Anisa was behind him describing the lengthy and arduous process of creating chocolate from bean to bar. Others sounded slightly pretentious but I guess this sort of festival that has a particular niche can quite easily become that way. However, other than that, it was a pretty fun experience and it seemed pretty successful as a first-time festival. There were lots of people and lots of local businesses who were there selling cakes and artisan chocolate. My mum's other friend Janet, sold her chocolates there too and they looked amazing. At the end of the day, she gave us a box of colourful handmade goodies (you can see the photo below) and they were absolutely delicious. In the end I was paid for my work and it was a good bit of added experience, and great for the CV.
Do you prefer dark chocolate or milk chocolate? Let me know in the comments below and I'll be sure to reply to them. I ♡ hearing from you!
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