Chocolate lovers rejoice! Middle East's first chocolate museum to launch in Egypt

By Sana Panjwani

To eat or not to eat?

That is the question you will find yourself asking as you step into the Middle East’s first Chocolate Museum, which will be opening its doors this spring in Cairo, Egypt.

The Cairo Chocolate Museum will guide its visitors through the history of chocolate dating back to the Mayans and Aztecs and cover almost 4,000 years of history in a 4,000 meter space on the 8^th floor of the City Shopping Mall through numerous delicious sculptures and paintings.

Unfortunately for regional chocolate lovers, the museum will only be open from March 19-21. However, Ali Abdel Hady, the event’s advertising and social media officer, says, “If the event is met with great enthusiasm, Cairo Chocolate Museum will be back for round two in 2016.”

Let’s hope it does because the museum has a lot more to offer than just history.

Not only will the public have access to delicious samples from international chocolate brands, there will also be an ice cream buffet together with rows and rows of different types of chocolate to offer visitors a customized indulgence that is guaranteed to take your taste buds on a heavenly journey. In fact, the weekend is already being referred to as a “diet free” weekend, in anticipation of all the chocolatey goodness.

The museum will also offer workshops for children to provide them with a platform to tap into and explore their creativity by making their very own yummy chocolate creations. Adults, on the other hand, will get the opportunity to learn the best ways to integrate chocolate with their meals and other unique, handcrafted chocolate recipes from professional chefs. The weekend might be over too soon, but the recipes will certainly stay with you forever.

The icing on the cake, however, is something deliciously extravagant that the organizers have set up.

When Cairoscene asked Abdel Hady what to expect at the museum, he responded: “Have you seen Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? That.”

The museum will feature a gigantically wondrous waterfall and river of chocolate akin to Willy Wonka’s own in the film starring Johnny Depp.

However, this isn’t Cairo’s first time dabbling in the chocolate market. Cairo is also home to Kakao, a chocolate shop in Garden City which has also been described as Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.

In fact, chocolate is something that we certainly appreciate in the region with Saudi Arabia and UAE being the biggest markets in this region. KPMG, a financial consultancy company, predicts a growth of 61% in the MENA region’s chocolate market, expecting it to reach USD 5.8 billion in 2016. Cairo’s Chocolate Museum is another step toward that future.

However, we may have to savor the moment and every piece of chocolate we get as the world is heading for a cocoa crisis.

Cocoa is the main ingredient used in chocolate making and according to two of the world’s largest chocolate makers – Mars, Inc. and Barry Callebaut – we are running short. In 2013, consumers devoured 70,000 metric tons more cocoa than was produced.

This museum, therefore, becomes all the more important, standing as a testament to the shared appreciation we all hold for chocolate and making it definitely worth the visit while we still can.

Bon Appétit!