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KAMP KYYA 2016

Kyya has grown substantially over the past year.  It took us time to figure out how to take time out of production to create Kamp Kyya.  Check website (purchase section) for details.  Last year's motto continues...we eat our mistakes.  Classes are listed below: 1)  Kamp Kyya will begin starting the first week of June.  Kamp Kyya is a 4 day bean to bar chocolate camp.   It meets 2 hours each day from Monday-Thursday.   We will learn what bean to bar chocolate is all about, create your own chocolate molds, a day of creating BonBons (filled chocolates) and Thursday is our production day where we mold and package our chocolate we started on Monday.  The class is designed for kids from 6-16.  Kids...

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OLLI Class Prep

We are excited to be teaching "Kamp Kyya" classes on bean to bar chocolate for the University of Arkansas OLLI program on March 8th, 9th and 10th.   Prior to attending a Kamp Kyya experience, there are some things that will help you be more efficient when working with and talking with the chocolatiers.       You will be in a FDA controlled facility and Kyya is a working facility.  On a good day, we make between 500-700 chocolate bars.   Please make sure you are not fighting anything (cold, virus, etc).  We don't want to pass along anything to others.  You will need to make sure you wash your hands before donning gloves. When working with chocolate in the manufacturing...

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Chocolate Terminology

This is a good place to learn basic terms we will be using at all our Kamp Kyya classes.  We can say with confidence that you never "know" chocolate, as we learn something new every week, including today,. cacao  - pronounced "kakaw" - what the rest of the world calls "cocoa" beans cocoa - powder you make hot chocolate from.  If there is a number on your cocoa powder, it's the residual amount of cocoa butter (aka fat) in the powder.  The higher the number, the "richer" the cocoa powder cocoa butter ~ what we make hand lotion from and the "fat" of the cocoa bean.  Each bean is approximately 50%/50% cocoa to cocoa butter. Most chocolates need a bit of cocoa...

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Inside Kyya

A few weeks ago, I went back to school.   Specifically, we started a 16 week intensive course (think mini-MBA) on rapid growth companies with a really cool organization called "Start-up Junkie".  We are hanging out with some pretty cool folks.   I think we are in the middle of the pack, some are ahead of us and some are little earlier in the process.  I am excited to learn as we leave the "startup" phase and get to the growth phase.   What does that mean?  It means building a company with processes, so that we are repeatable, so we can scale (more chocolate, more retailers) and also shed some things (things we don't need to do) and making sure we...

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Kyya goes to Washington

The last 7 days have just blown us away, but there is one more cool thing to share that we can share with you that the chocolate company that specializes in being "square" accomplished today. Kyya went to Washington...DC that is.   My old stomping grounds.  We went to boarding school in the Virginia foothills (Woodberry Forest) way back in the day and hung out in DC on the rare weekends when we didn't have a sporting event or playing our arch rival Episcopal.  But we digress....enough about that. Earlier this year, Congressman Steve Womack dropped by to learn about Kyya, the home of Arkansas Artisan Chocolate.   We have sampled the chocolates and had a good chat.  He had a blast (pictures to...

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