Vancouver’s chocolate bar “Mermaid’s Choice” won Top Chocolate Bar at an international contest.
Photo – Courtesy of Mink’s founder Marc Lieberman
Adapted from The Vancouver Sun by Nancy Carson
Level 3
Marc Lieberman is a very happy man.
He started a chocolate company
in Vancouver.
He opened Mink Chocolates
eight years ago.
Now he has two stores.
The other one is in Surrey, B.C.
Read the PDF:
“Going nuts”
A few months ago, Lieberman
was reading his emails.
He read that one of his chocolate bars
won “top chocolate bar”
at a competition in California.
Lieberman said he “went nuts”.
“I think people must have thought
I was being murdered.”
Every chocolate maker in the world
Any chocolate maker can enter the contest.
Lieberman knew about the competition.
But he had never entered.
In 2014, his wife convinced him to try.
Medals for a newcomer
Mink Chocolates won six other medals.
Lieberman says the most important award
is the top chocolate bar.
This year, 2014, judges awarded
two gold medals for the best bar.
An Australian company will share the title.
Denmark’s famous statue of a mermaid, a creature believed to be half woman and half fish
Photo by Long Zheng/CC, Flickr
Mermaid’s Choice
The winning chocolate bar
is filled with ganache, and
it is 70% dark chocolate.
Lieberman is already thinking,
“What will I enter next year?”
Local chocolatiers win in Vancouver
Since 2012, Canadian chocolate makers
have entered the International Chocolate Awards.
The 2014 Canadian competition
was in October in Vancouver.
Vancouver’s Beta5 Chocolates won gold medals.
Chez Christophe Chocolate Patisserie won silver,
and Gusto Chocolates also won bronze.
The Canadian winners can go to
the world finals in November in London, England.
Mink Chocolate has some unusual names for their bars, like “Romeo and Juliet”.
Photo – Courtesy of Marc Lieberman
Vocabulary:
- founder: a person who created or starts a company.
- “went nuts”: acted in a crazy manner, or behaved as if someone was out of control.
- ganache (ga – NASH): melted chocolate mixed with cream.
- mermaid: a mythical half-human sea creature with the head and upper body of a woman and the tail of a fish. One of the most famous statues of a mermaid is in Denmark.
Links:
- Purdy’s Chocolates opened its first chocolate shop in 1907 on Robson Street in Vancouver. Purdy’s was voted by its employees as one of Canada’s 50 Best Employers in 2002, 2004, 2008, 2009 and 2014.
- Gusto Chocolates explains their name: http://gustochocolates.ca/about/
- Beanpod Chocolates, Fernie, B.C.
https://thewestcoastreader.com/a-beanpod-from-fernie-goes-to-london/