Salon du Chocolat
If you love sweets — chocolate in particular — Japan in the weeks before Valentine’s Day is definitely a great place to be. Ever since chocolate makers in Japan managed to make it a widespread tradition for women to give chocolates to men on Valentine’s Day, it’s become an annual event to see chocolates being sold at shops everywhere starting in late January, with numerous special promotions and appearances by “celebrity chocolatiers” to heighten the excitement leading up to the big V-day.
Yes, for chocolate lovers, it’s a blissful time of year — there’s nothing quite like stepping into a department store and seeing a huge space filled with chocolates of all shapes and sizes while being surrounded by the rich, earthy scent of cacao. But now that Valentine’s Day is over, we may be developing a case of the post-Valentine’s blues, so to console ourselves, we’ve put together a collection of photos showcasing some of the most memorable chocolate items we saw this Valentine’s season in Japan.
Many of our readers have probably guessed that Japan has a passion for chocolate. But each year in the days leading up to Valentine’s Day, which is when women in Japan customarily give men gifts of chocolate, that passion has a tendency to turn into outright frenzy. Spend time in Japan before Valentine’s Day, and you’ll see countless special chocolate products and dedicated vending areas in every shopping mall and department store. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Valentine chocolate madness has now officially begun in Japan, and what better place to experience the excitement than Tokyo’s own production of the world’s biggest chocolate festival, the Salon du Chocolat? Join us on a tour of the event and see what all the sweet fuss is about — if you’re a chocolate lover, you just might think you’ve died and gone to chocolate heaven!
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