Tour Washington's Best Chocolate Regions

Cacao Know-How

Take decadence to new heights and spoil yourself on adventures throughout Washington’s artisan, inventive and storied chocolate regions

written by Danielle Centoni

FOR CHOCOLATE LOVERS, few things are better than having an entire box of chocolates all to yourself, each tiny, pleated paper cup holding a sweet surprise in the palm of your hand.

But if you think about it, the entire state is like a box of chocolates, rich with a varied assortment of chocolatiers putting their own stamp on the decadent world of confections. We’ve got iconic shops offering blasts from the past, bean-to-bar makers going right to the source, and modern artists with limitless imaginations.

You can taste your way through it all with a DIY chocolate crawl through the most chocolate-rich regions in the state. Some makers even offer tours and classes. Best of all, there’s always plenty to do nearby so you can turn your chocolate excursions into an entire day, or even weekend, of fun.

Old-School Cool in South Sound

The South Sound area is home to two of the state’s most venerable chocolate makers, all within a short drive of each other. Start in Tacoma, where the Brown & Haley factory has been making Mountain Bars and world-famous Almond Roca for more than a century. Although tours are no longer offered, you can still get familiar with the history through a short video at the factory store, and load up on factory seconds, which come in 7- to 12-ounce bags and start at just $1.99.

Brown & Haley in Tacoma still innovates beyond its world-famous Almond Roca.

Lisa Barker/Travel Tacoma

Johnson Candy Company, another old-timey classic, is just two miles away. In business since 1925, this family-owned enterprise started out as a creamery but now aims its cacao know-how on boxes filled with fudge, caramels, nut clusters and creamy soft centers. The seafoam (chocolate-covered honeycomb toffee) is a standout, as are the hand-dipped ice cream bars. There are even vegan and sugar-free chocolates, too.

While you’re in the area, check out maritime exhibits at the nearby Foss Waterway Seaport, walk around the Point Ruston waterfront and poke around the shops and restaurants while soaking up serene Puget Sound views, or take a hike around Point Defiance, which even has a zoo and aquarium, or rent kayaks at Owen Beach.

Take treats to Owen Beach at Point Defiance Park and rent a kayak to work it off.

Travel Tacoma

A short jaunt north to Auburn and you’ll find the factory headquarters of Gosanko Chocolate, a thirty-five-year-old, family-owned company known for its panoply of intricately molded chocolates in shapes such as roses and sand dollars (although its line of truffles and caramels are proving just as popular). At the factory, peek in a window and watch the packaging process and you envision the classic “I Love Lucy” episode of the speeding conveyor belt at the chocolate factory. Get samples, and buy treats—including vanilla-dipped dog bones for the special pup in your life.

Head a few minutes farther north to Kent, and you can sip your chocolate fix at the Dilettante Mocha Cafe while loading up on ethereally creamy Ephemere truffles, a favorite of Julia Child’s. The signature velvety and light-as-air chocolates are made with caramelized butter and have been the signature confection since the company got its start in 1976.

Forrest Gump, the eponymous hero of the 1994 movie famously said, “Life is like a box of chocolates,” and what’s life without a little road trip? Go west, chocolate pilgrim, over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and head up to Amy’s Decadent Chocolates in Bremerton, a half-hour drive from Tacoma. This beloved local favorite specializes in nuts and chews, soft centers, and gourmet caramel apples. You can walk off the sugar high at the nearby Bremerton Boardwalk and duck into the Puget Sound Navy Museum to see what life is really like for sailors aboard nuclear submarines. Or, wander through Elandan Gardens on your way back to Tacoma. It’s home to thousand-year-old bonsai trees, unique sculptures and an eclectic gift shop.

Amy’s Decadent Chocolates handcrafts edible gems with locally grown apples, freshly roasted nuts and other wholesome ingredients.

Amy's Decadent Chocolates

Touring Through Seattle

The state’s biggest city has the widest array of chocolate makers, from Belgian-inspired sweets to cutting edge Japanese makers to bean-to-bar chocolates with serious Pacific Northwest vibes. Best of all, here’s where you can really get up close and personal through several behind-the-scenes tours.

Start your deep-dive into cocoa at Seattle Chocolate Company’s factory in Tukwila, where the fifty-minute guided tours aren’t just entertaining, they’re educational. You’ll taste a variety of chocolates, including signature flavors such as Cake Batter Truffle Bar or Moon Rocks (made with popping candy), see how the production machines churn out these delicious wonders. Delve into chocolate history and find out how the company comes up with new flavors. The cacao is all ethically sourced, and for its ultra-premium sister brand, Jcoco, it comes directly from small farmers who are paid fairly for single-origin beans used to make flavors such as Mango Plantain and Quinoa Sesame. This is taste-good, do-good chocolate—10 percent of profits go to organizations fighting food insecurity.

Seattle Chocolate’s factory is woman-owned and run.

Jackie Dodd

From here, you’re a stone’s throw from Westfield Southcenter mall, where you can taste a Japanese take on chocolate at the Royce’ chocolate boutique. Hailing from Hokkaido, it’s famed for its silky-rich truffles called Nama, which take your palate on an adventure with flavors such as matcha and Islay whisky. For when you’ve returned home, elevate the guilty pleasure of coach-ready snacking with salty-crunchy chocolate-covered potato chips.

For your second tour, head east to Issaquah. Along the way, stop at the Jimi Hendrix Memorial, where the legendary performer is buried alongside family at Greenwood Memorial Park cemetery, or take a vigorous 3-mile hike up Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park from the Jim Whittaker Wilderness Peak Trailhead. Once in Issaquah and you’ve burned a few calories, you’ll find seventyfive-year-old Boehm’s Candies and Chocolates, in an authentic reproduction of an Alpine chalet. Founder Julius Boehm was a big personality with an adventurous spirit who made a lasting impact on the town, and you can learn about him, and how his European-style, hand-made chocolates are still produced, on a factory tour. This experience is $100 for a group of eight, so bring your friends. You’ll be rewarded with an up-close look at his life and his legacy, starting with a tour of his house above the shop, then through the production facility where you’ll be sampling along the way. As you leAve. you’ll be handed bags of candy, each packed with about $20 worth of luscious treats to take home.

For an even more hands-on experience, book a class and learn how to make the candies yourself. Boehm’s chocolates range from classics like chocolate-covered brandied cherries, and rocky road embedded with massive chunks of fluffy marshmallows, to modern confections made with ingredients such as mushroom salt or cactus flower honey. Or, take a self-guided tour where you can peek through seven windows to get the Wonka effect—by taking in the candy-making.

Make it a chocolate tour trifecta and head west into North Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood and hit the Theo Chocolate Factory, founded in 2005 and the first organic, fair-trade certified chocolate maker in North America. The one-hour tour costs $12 and includes plenty of samples of Theo’s wildly popular chocolate bars, peanut butter cups and other candies, plus you’ll learn the art and science of bean-to-bar chocolate, get the inside scoop on fair trade practices, and see chocolatiers at work.

Fremont is a quirky gem, so don’t leave without visiting the massive Fremont Troll sculpture (lurking under a bridge of course). Check out the shops and restaurants (Revel, a Korean-influenced restaurant, is a longtime favorite, see pg. 64), or walk along the canal and watch the boats. If you time it right, you can shop for artisan goods at the Fremont Sunday Market.

Still haven’t had your fill of chocolate? Head to the Pike Place area where there’s fabulous chocolate on seemingly every corner. Stop by indi chocolate for expertly pulled espresso and single-origin chocolate bars and truffles. You can even buy machines to make your own bean-to-bar chocolate. One block east is Seleuss Chocolate, known for pushing the boundaries with things like cigar-infused truffles. A few blocks south sits the iconic downtown outpost of Fran’s Chocolates, purveyor of perhaps Seattle’s most elegant, famous, family-owned confectioner. Directly up Pike Street in Capitol Hill, get a Mexican take on chocolate at Rey Amargo, the first U.S. shop of a venerable, family-owned chocolate factory with seven shops in Mexico. Sip traditional drinking chocolates then load up on spiced cocoa powders, baking chocolates, bars and confections are all made with stone-ground cacao sourced from small family farms in Mexico.

Fran’s Chocolates in downtown Seattle handcrafts truffles, salted caramels and more.

Fran's Chocolates

Fudgy Love in Leavenworth

The adorable Alpine-esque town of Leavenworth is known for its dedication to all things Bavarian, but the chocolate shops hew to a more American (fudge-centric) theme. There’s no shortage of shops to get your fudge fix, including Happy Happy Fudge, which specializes in seasonal, handmade fudge and even makes vegan versions. Fudge Hut uses a steam kettle to mix its wide array of smooth and creamy flavors and Icicle Coffee and Chocolate wows customers with rotating flavors such as raspberry pistachio and Biscoff cookie.

Leavenworth’s Fudge Hut boasts creamy classic chocolate fudge with a vanilla-fudge-coconut center and chopped almonds.

Leavenworth Chamber of Commerce

Icicle Coffee also sells locally made, artisan, organic and seasonally driven Yeti Chocolates that are as gorgeous as they are hard to find outside the Wenatchee area of their base in Rock Island.

Yeti Chocolates aren’t the only locally made chocolates that stand out from the fudgy crowd. Schocolat, with its exquisite European-style chocolates handmade in small batches, has become a destination all its own. Don’t pass over the brandied pear caramel, which features dried Washington pears steeped in brandy.

Once fortified by chocolate, head to Leavenworth’s Waterfront Park, to picnic or savor your sweet stash and watch the Wenatchee River float by. Or stretch your legs with a hike in Icicle Gorge. Farm stands along Highway 2 are fun to poke around in, especially Smallwoods Harvest with its petting zoo and tiny train ride for kiddos. For another fascinating behind-the-scenes tour, visit the Liberty Orchards factory in Cashmere and see how they make their famous Aplets and Cotlets, candies with the flavor of crisp Washington apples, ripe apricots (locally known as “cots”) and the crunch of English walnuts. They’re not chocolate but they’re still a delight.

Spokane's Sweet Legacy

Eastern Washington’s biggest city has a long history of candy making, and you can still taste that legacy today. First stop: Spokandy in downtown Spokane. It’s been around since 1913, when founder Terrance J. Riley opened his candy shop with a confection he dubbed “The Murphy.” Made with a whipped and marshmallow-y filling, dipped in chocolate, then rolled in shredded coconut, it’s still a best-seller more than 100 years later. In addition to the Murphy (which also comes in huckleberry flavor), plus other soft-center chocolates and chews, Spokandy offers Michele’s Chocolate Truffles line of gourmet chocolates in flavors such as bourbon pecan, chai, and Mt. Hood Crunch (white chocolate ganache, coconut cashews, dipped in white chocolate and topped with bits of brittle). For a truly Northwest treat, get a Bigfoot Paw—think turtle but twice as big and in the shape of a paw, made with nuts and caramel all dipped in chocolate.

Spokandy handcrafts chocolate covered creams, caramels, Northwest huckleberries and truffles.

Aaron Theisen/Visit Spokane

Even closer to downtown’s main shopping and dining area is another local icon: Bruttles Candies. Sophia Gerkensmeyer first concocted the recipe for her signature soft, flaky, peanut-buttery peanut brittle in the 1950s, but she got her start in the Spokane candy industry in 1914 when she was 17 years old. The rich and flakey chocolate-dipped Bruttles, in peanut or cashew flavors, are wildly popular and for good reason. If you’re a Butterfinger fan, this candy is for you—though it might spoil you forever.

Luckily, these iconic candy shops are nearby Spokane’s wonderfully scenic Riverfront Park along the Spokane River. What used to be a railyard is now thriving with attractions such as the 1909 Loof Carousel and an outdoor ice skating ribbon—(not a rink, but a 16-foot-wide, 650-foot-long pathway to a 3,500-square-foot pond)—complete with skate rentals, a café and fire pits for keeping cozy while resting. In the summer, the Numerica Skate Ribbon is a paved space to rollerblade, skateboard or scooter. The park is next to the largest urban waterfall in the country, and you can even take a tram ride over the falls.

Nibble Spokandy on the Numerica SkyRide for the sweetest views of Spokane Falls, which runs through downtown.

Aaron Theisen/Visit Spokane

From there it’s a short jaunt to the Northwest Museum of Art and Culture, founded in 1916 and an affiliate of the Smithsonian. It focuses on the art and history of the region, including local pioneer and Native American history, as well as a rotating selection of curated exhibits, such as the works of Louis Comfort Tiffany.

If you visit later in spring and through the fall, stop at Manito Park Botanical Gardens and the Nishinomiya Tsutakawa Japanese Garden when gorgeous landscapes bloom and change with the seasons.

Stroll through Nishinomiya Tsutakawa Japanese Garden and contemplate sister-city friendship and the 1967 design of landscape architect Nagao Sakurai, who oversaw the grounds of the Imperial Palace of Tokyo.

Visit Spokane