Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and Chocolate Passion in Conroe is the place to buy your love fancy chocolate-covered strawberries and rich, creamy, delectable bonbons and truffles made on-site.
Terry and Zulay Quinn have provided the community with handmade and hand-crafted sweets, unique chocolate presentations, and customized orders of their creamy and smooth imported Venezuelan chocolate for 17 years.
“After all these years, we still love to see the smile on people’s faces when they taste our chocolates,” Zulay, who is very much a people person, said. “I just love meeting and serving our customers. And sometimes they tell me about their problems, and when I give them chocolate, their problems go away.”
The chocolate that Zulay and Terry serve in their chocolate shop on Frazier Street is of the Criollo variety, the rarest of cacao beans, nicknamed the King of Cacao. According to Terry, the Venezuelan Criollo chocolate is highly appreciated by chocolate connoisseurs because it is unparalleled to any other chocolate with the absence of tannins, which normally give it bitterness and astringency, giving Criollo a unique creaminess.
A native of Venezuela, Zulay met her husband Terry in her home country as he was working for Baker Hughes in oil and gas. A romantic himself, Terry proposed to Zulay under a beautiful waterfall with a bottle of champagne in the early 1990s and told Zulay he always wanted to be a chocolatier and own a chocolate shop. In 2002, the couple moved to The Woodlands, raised their two sons, Christopher and Alex, and brought their passion for chocolate to Montgomery County after visiting and experiencing the cacao plantations in the forests of Venezuela.
“We used to stop at a cacao plantation in the dense tropical forest near the coast,” Terry said. “This primitive farm was more than 400 years old. The farmer showed us the old spikes and irrigation systems of the original plantation, and we came to love the wonderfully rich flavors of the Criollo chocolate.”
“The health benefits of chocolate are abundant, specifically dark chocolate,” Terry said. “Medical studies have shown that dark chocolate improves blood circulation and cardiovascular health and is a mood enhancer. Our sumptuous dark chocolate truffles, dusted in cocoa, send waves of health to boost your well-being".
Chocolate Passion offers more than 25 flavors of chocolate ganache and is made with only natural ingredients using fresh ginger, lemon, mint, berry purees, and nuts. Molds are used to shape some specialty chocolates into unique shapes like guitars, cigars, or roses.
“The best-selling flavors are our champagne and orange truffles, pecan and chocolate caramel turtles that look like turtles, brandied cherries, and all of our chocolate nut and caramel chocolates,” Zulay said. Top-selling chocolates for Valentine’s Day are chocolate-covered strawberries (order a day in advance), champagne truffles, orange truffles, turtles, brandies, cherry bonbons, hot chocolate cocoa bombs, and chocolate-covered Baklava.
Chocolate Passion is a quiet place to get work done on a laptop or have a Zoom meeting. They have free Wi-Fi Hotspot service for all their customers’ business needs.
“Our coffee of the day is selected brewed coffees of various single estate and blended coffees. We also serve espressos, cappuccinos, frappes, smoothies, Italian sodas, and organic teas. The hot chocolate is made straight from shaved Venezuelan chocolate,” Zulay said. They serve several types of sandwiches, salads, cakes, pies, and pastries. We cater to businesses with unique chocolate business cards or custom gift baskets.
Chocolate Passion is open Tuesday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Lunch is served Wednesday through Friday, from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Located at 1520 N. Frazier. Be sure to order 3-4 days in advance of any occasion. Valentine’s Day could be every day. Indulge in the best. ChocolatePassion.net
