"Adult Pleasure" at the Chocolate Factory

When I spied the sign saying that this was El Museo de Chocolate, I read it quickly and saw only 10:00 and 13:00. Darn! It was 12:40 now. "Hurry," I said, "we only have twenty minutes!"

But I was wrong, as the guard who had given us permission to photograph the building said quickly. The last tour is at 13:00 "en punto." We should go out the auto entrance to the sidewalk, proceed to the far end of the block-long building, and wait at the gate. At 1:00 PM "on the dot" the pedestrian gate would open and the last tour of the day would begin.

Valor had kindly set up two large umbrellas and three long benches, where we could sit and rest for twenty minutes after our long walk. I read as we waited, and suddenly I realized that 25 or so people had joined us and now it was standing room only. Most were Spanish, but I heard a couple English voices. There are not a lot of events that begin "en punto" in Spain. Trains are one. The Valor chocolate factory tour is another.

Having walked the length of a city block (the front facade of the glass building) we now walked the depth of a block and were ushered in to a small, make-shift theater, where we saw a short film about the "discovery" of chocolate (thank you, Christopher Columbus) and the making of it in general, and especially by the Valor company. The screen was not large, but the images of crushing cacao beans and the addition of milk filled the space available and were tempting. We were treated to a selection of Valor's television commercials for its products, and I found it incongruous, with a large number of children in the audience, that its slogan "adult pleasure" appeared so often. Nevertheless, it's a good slogan and one of the few adult pleasures that can be maintained in vigor as the years increase.

We then went into an adjoining building that featured two stories of memorabilia from this family-run business that was started by Don Valeriano Lopez Lloret in 1881.  Images of some of the items we saw, as well as an English-language chronology, are on the web. My favorite was a print ad reproduction that showed two very skinny adults "who didn't eat Valor chocolates," two very fat adults "after eating Valor chocolates," and two modestly sized and happy adults who ate Valor chocolates "twice a day." A recipe for adult happiness?

Our group, which had been divided into Spanish and English speaking factions for the museum visit, then reunited as we went into the factory itself. Language was not an issue here, as the noise was loud enough that little could be said anyway. We wound our way up and around a narrow catwalk through first, a very hot part of the building, and then a very cold part. If our guide was at the front of our group, I lost her. There was only one way forward, though, and we followed it, observing on our own the activity below us--surprisingly few people on the factory floor, but a multitude of different work stations for mixing, conveying, quality-control, packaging. There was one long belt of chocolate bars moving the width of the factory floor, and only two women at the end, occasionally pulling a piece off. It was impossible not to recall the "I Love Lucy" episode when Lucy and Ethel got a job in the chocolate factory.

All roads lead to Rome, and all factory tours lead to the factory store. Valor was no exception, but we were greeted by three large plates of different kinds of chocolates, free for the sampling. They were good. Following the advice from the old print ad, I helped myself twice. We also made a few purchases before we left. I don't buy chocolate often, so I don't know whether the prices were better than, worse than, or the same as in retail stores. They seemed reasonable. We hadn't paid a centimo for the tour, and the guide had disappeared, so we couldn't even tip her, so the least we could do was buy some adult pleasure to take home after our day out.