About Us
You might say that my love affair with chocolate began at a young age. As a young girl I always loved baking and sharing my creations, usually with chocolate as a main ingredient, with family and friends. Baking, however, was a pastime. My career began as an itinerant teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing. It remains a very fulfilling career, however, my love of creating culinary delights persisted, which led me to starting koko chocolates.
My passion for chocolate was alighted in Seattle during a chocolate truffle making course that my husband Jon and I took to celebrate Valentine’s Day one year. This sparked the desire to learn more. After much thought, I decided to apprentice with a chocolatier in Vancouver, BC, to experience the business. Then to further my skills, I took a professional chocolatier program at Ecole Chocolat. My journey continued on to the Cordon Bleu Culinary Institute to take the chocolate program with Chef Herve Chabert. Finally to perfect and refine my acquired skills I enrolled at the expert level in a program offered at the Callebaut training academy in Montreal, QC with Chef Derrick Tu Tan Pho.
The name “kōkō chocolates" was born from my linguistic background as a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing - “kōkō" is the phonetic spelling of “cocoa" and thus “kōkō chocolates" is a combination of the things I love.
I’m thrilled that you found your way to my website and I’d love to have the opportunity to acquaint you with my unique and delectable chocolate creations.