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As some of you may know, my wife is the manager of a chocolate shop in Toronto called SOMA, and I also help out there a little bit during the busy holiday season. SOMA is not just a chocolate shop, but also a chocolatemaker, which means they purchase cacao beans and do every step of the chocolate-making process in house (the process is called “bean to bar”).
Today, I’d like to share SOMA’s story, and in a follow-up article, I’ll describe what it’s like to work there. Here is SOMA’s story:
“The year was 2003 and the idea of creating a small, funky chocolate factory was born in the minds of David Castellan and Cynthia Leung. The concept: finding new ways to create and enjoy chocolate.
On making our first batches of chocolate, it was immediately apparent that we had stumbled upon something magical and that our future would be tied to it. In cacao beans, nature has made the perfect “Soma”, a mystical substance mentioned in the Rig Veda and later by Aldous Huxley in the novel Brave New World. It was time to start exploring this new frontier.
Our first space was in a tiny corner of a former whisky distillery. We started off roasting and winnowing cacao beans, refining and conching our own chocolate, spinning gelato, baking cookies, making hot chocolates, and producing a line of truffles. (whew!) A small retail portion would fold out during the day, and like a transformer, fold back in at night. It was here that we started meeting a community of very interesting folks with a healthy appetite for great chocolate.
Fast forward to the future, with the loyal support of our chocolate-obsessed customers (thank-you!) we’ve grown to 2 stores, a small chocolate factory, a network of wholesalers, and a small team of wonderfully kooky and talented people we are proud to work alongside.
The love and curiosity of all things chocolate propels us on as we continue to seek out great cacao beans, explore more ingredients, and have nice chats with our regulars and newcomers. We look forward to meeting everyone.”
If you’d like to see some of SOMA’s products, you can visit their website here.
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