Two chocolate lovers — Travis Ashing and Sam Lang — met on a dating app almost ten years ago. Not long after meeting Travis, Sam returned to Colorado Springs from culinary school in Denver.
While on the lookout for a chef position in what was a somewhat sleepier town back then, Travis and Sam started brainstorming. During Thanksgiving of 2014, they decided they wanted to open up a company. For Travis, it would be a side hustle to his full-time engineering and project management career and for Sam, it would be full-time. These two went with the route we call “building the plane in the air.” Two weeks later, they had products being sampled at a chocolate festival hosted by our very own Broadmoor. What was a seemingly gutsy entry for a start-up paid off.
The next two years were spent in summer and winter farmer's markets and chocolate festivals in a variety of locations. The two attended festivals often and knew that the type of chocolate and product that they were sampling had not yet touched base in Colorado Springs. This would be the realization that pushed them to become a delicious truffle-making company for us.
Through mutual contacts, the Savory Spice shop connected these chocolate-making heroes with a brick and mortar space and it opened up on Valentine's day of 2016. A cute space with a kitchen, a few tables, and a couple of truffles has grown into a shop of mouth-watering desserts and pastries, ice cream, sourced product from other dessert artisans, French almond macaroons, house-made truffles, and a rotating menu—mostly when they get bored, but also around different holidays.
Valentine’s Day this year will have French bonbons! “When we use the word bonbon in America, people assume we mean frozen balls of ice cream covered in chocolate. This is the Belgian version of a truffle. A beautifully sculpted chocolate shell with a filling,” Sam explains. Sam’s favorite treat to eat is the dark chocolate salted caramel bar… drool.
Make sure you’re following along on social media for updates as to when they’re hosting chocolate pairings with local breweries, a potential second location opening, and special updates along the way.
Website: https://www.cacaochemistry.com/
Facebook + Instagram: @cacaochemistry
