“We’ve making chocolate for seven years now. We started in a tiny kitchen in the basement of my wife’s home parent’s home,” Hershberger said. “Four years ago we moved here and then four years after that we got this retail space.”
“We do see people from other parts of Iowa here. I would say one thing that attracts customers is the fact that they [the chocolates] are handmade, made in small batches, and are local is very unique about our shop. And it’s unique that they’re fresh, it’s not something you find from a national brand.”Quiet streets, old fashioned quilt shops, and horse drawn buggies are just a few of the characteristics that make the town of Kalona, Iowa, unique. Home of the Amish and Mennonites, Kalona was founded in the 1840’s and has a population of about 2,363 people. The drive started out with us listening to some Taylor Swift and enjoying the beautiful brown and tan colors of Iowa. The drive from Iowa City to Kalona was around 40 minutes long. The first things we noticed was the horse drawn buggies and how quiet it was in downtown Kalona. We first stopped into Kalona Chocolates, a family business in downtown Kalona. We met the owner, Lyndon Hershberger, and after talking to us he offered us both free chocolate samples. The chocolate shop and Kalona Bakery are in connecting building, so we walked right through to the bakery and bought some homemade jam. After the chocolate shop, we walked down the single street of downtowns Kalona and saw an ice cream shop and many quilt shops. While in Kalona, make sure to check out the bus tours, where you can travel around the Amish farms and shops to experience more of their culture.
Chocolates include: milk, sea salt caramel, dark chocolate sea salt caramel, milk chocolate caramel, white chocolate espressoa, nut butter truffle, raspberry truffle, english toffee with milk chocolate
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