HAPPY BIRTHDAY COCOA ( A short history)

So today is Cocoa's 6^th anniversary! Cocoa was Rachell Burton’s fantasy, she got so carried away bidding on e-bay she bought a truffle cabinet. It seemed logical then to create a chocolate shop and fill the cabinet with scrumptious handmade truffles! And this is exactly what she did. It was in August that year that I (Anne) was lucky enough to get a job in Cocoa and later on I asked if my friend Kate could work at Cocoa as well.


At the beginning of 2006 Rachell wanted to sell the business, as she didn’t have the time to look after it properly, as her children were getting older. Kate and I were devastated at the thought of the business being taken over or at worst closed down. Rachell suggested we took over the business ourselves and at first we thought she was joking but she was actually serious and helped us find the funding to buy it. So we just had to finish our degrees, not in Business or Chocolate but English and Psychology and get a good solicitor.


And so today is also 4 years since Kate and I bought the business. I will never forget the night we decided it was a good idea to take the risk and buy Cocoa. Kate took about five minutes to talk me into it and we were so excited. It felt like I had fallen in love, I couldn’t eat or sleep or stop talking about it. I felt like the luckiest girl alive but the first year was actually really hard and because of that well worth it now!


So much has changed since then. Our first year was spent surviving and creating the Cocoa lounge piece by piece, which was first opened for a cup of tea in September of 2007. Later on we turned our office into the Butterfly Boudoir and started our chocolate tasting evenings. Then we started Knit club, which went so well we started Book club. By late 2009 we had enough Cocoa girls to open every day and more importantly meant Kate and I finally had weekends at last!

Feeling adventurous Kate and I spent January 2010 living on a cocoa plantation and watching pods turn to bars in the smallest chocolate factory in the world. We have recently got back from our first Chocolate making course, where we got to play with delicious chocolate and make our own moulds and truffles. So cross fingers this will be the next stage for Cocoa, as we would love to get messy in the kitchen.

So who knows what we will be doing next year....

THE START OF NEW THINGS

OK first blog....I hope this will be an insight into the bizarre world that is Cocoa. So me (Anne) and my best friend Kate own a beautiful little chocolate shop in Sheffield,UK called Cocoa. It is a boutique of all things sweet and delicious, from popping candy to gourmet chocolate bars, handmade truffles to brittle liquorice we love to see people treat themselves and others. Nestled inside the shop you will find a secret tea parlour...

...we call this place the Cocoa lounge and upstairs you will discover the Butterfly Boudoir....

Here you can enjoy a lovely cup of tea, or hot chocolate or even a ginger beer to accompany a cake or truffles or at best both! The Cocoa lounge is laden with gifts to create your very own tea party at home. At night the rooms host groups of Chocolate tasters, and the Cocoa girls feed them a variety of chocolate from around the world. Every month Cocoa hosts a knitting club and a book club, where people are welcome to escape and enjoy a hot chocolate with plenty of chat.

And this is our life.


Welcome to our world...