The Northwest Chocolate Festival 2026

In this 50-minute presentation and tasting, I will share how KESSHŌ uses Asian-inspired bean-to-bar chocolate as a medium for collaboration, storytelling, and sensory exploration.

Rather than treating collaboration as simply putting two brand names on one product, I will talk about how we approach it as co-storytelling: finding the shared language between cacao and another brand’s world. Through examples including a Michelin-recognized Texas BBQ collaboration in Austin, Fly By Jing’s chili crisp, and Quinta do Noval Port wine, I will explore how chocolate can connect with smoke, spice, umami, fruit, tannin, texture, and cultural memory.

The talk will move between creative process, flavor development, brand storytelling, and tasting. We will look at how a collaboration begins, how we decide what story the chocolate should tell, and how we translate another brand’s identity into a bar that still feels true to KESSHŌ’s craft.
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I hope to communicate that chocolate is more than a finished product. It can be a meeting place between cultures, crafts, ingredients, and people.

Through tasting and storytelling, I want the audience to experience how collaboration can expand the way we think about chocolate. A chocolate bar can carry the patience of slow BBQ, the confidence and aromatics of chili crisp, or the elegance and depth of Port wine. But for a collaboration to work, it must be more than surprising. It has to be balanced, intentional, and emotionally understandable.

I also hope to show that Asian-inspired flavors in chocolate are not a novelty or decoration. For KESSHŌ, they are a way of bringing memory, culture, and perspective into the craft of bean-to-bar chocolate. My goal is to communicate this through sensory experience: tasting, smelling, comparing, and discussing how flavors tell stories.
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The audience will experience a guided tasting that connects flavor with story. They will taste examples that show how chocolate can interact with other culinary worlds, including smoke, spice, umami, wine, fruit, and texture.

They will also learn how KESSHŌ thinks about collaboration from both a creative and technical perspective, including:

How to identify a meaningful sensory bridge between two brands.
How to balance strong flavors without overwhelming the cacao.
How to preserve the identity of both collaborators.
How to turn a flavor idea into a product with a clear story.
How tasting can become a way of understanding culture, craft, and brand identity.

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The audience will leave with a broader understanding of what craft chocolate can be. They will see how chocolate can move beyond traditional pairings and become a platform for creative dialogue across food, culture, and brand identity.