Make Your Own Chocolate Treats at This New Tour in Mānoa

I’ve been visiting Choco leʻa, a charming chocolate boutique in Mānoa on Oʻahu, since it first opened 10 years ago. Its artisanal chocolates make perfect gifts for my kid’s teachers, my neighbors and, well, myself. I’m there a lot.

In its 10th year—a milestone for a small business!—the shop has launched a new hands-on tour that allows you to make your own chocolate treats the way the pros do it.

The 90-minute tour starts in a room upstairs—called the Chocolate House—from the shop. (It was a rental apartment the shop now leases as an event space.) Owner Erin Kanno Uehara welcomes us with a glass of iced tea made in-house from discarded cacao shells.

Iced tea made with discarded cacao shells.
Photo: Catherine Toth Fox

“Smell it,” she instructs. “It smells like chocolate.”

And she’s right. The drink is light, refreshing and a perfect way to start.

Uehara explains how the tour hits all senses: You get to taste the shop’s signature dark chocolate blend of local and European chocolates, touch the equipment and chocolates when you make your own treats, smell all the flavors around you, see how the chocolates are made by the shop’s expert chocolatiers, and feel the love that goes into the work through her behind-the-scenes stories.

After we sample the chocolate—my favorite part—we get to work crafting our own treats. In the kitchen Uehara shows us how chocolate is tempered and demonstrates how to make a chocolate square—the same ones sold in the shop downstairs.

Inside the Chocolate House, where the tour starts.
Photo: Catherine Toth Fox

We carefully ladle the tempered chocolate into our square molds, then head to the table where we can decorate them with the toppings provided. Since I was making this for my 7-year-old son, I used rainbow sprinkles, pineapple-shaped candies and candy eyeballs (of course). But there were lots of other options, including crushed macadamia nuts, crushed Oreos, li hing powder and coconut flakes.

Here’s my creation.
Photo: Catherine Toth Fox

Next, we learn how to properly dip things like dried mango slices, potato chips and Oreo cookies into dark chocolate. Uehara even came up with a song to help us.

“Dip, dip, dip. Shake, shake, shake. Scrap, scrap, flip. That’s how we make Choco leʻa.”

It certainly helps.

We dip our mango slices, pretzels and animal cookies into the dark chocolate, then decorate them however we want.

While the chocolate treats are cooling, we learn more about the company. Uehara explains how she got involved with Choco leʻa, which was originally started by her uncle Colins Kawai. (She actually met him at a wedding expo and discovered he was her uncle. Long story. You gotta do the tour.) She tells us the name of the company is a combination of the French word for chocolate (choco, shortened from chocolat) and the Hawaiian word for joy (leʻa). The company’s logo—a koaʻe ʻula (red-tailed tropicbird) holding a cacao branch in its beak—is a local version of the dove carrying the olive branch, a symbol of peace.

“That’s our company mission—bringing peace to our world, one chocolate at a time,” Uehara says.

Owner Erin Kanno Uehara gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the business.
Photo: Catherine Toth Fox

In her office she shares her inspiration for her latest seasonal treats. The most recent design on her boxes, for example, were inspired by a recent trip to Portugal, where she fell in love with geometric tile designs. The idea for this month’s special, the nine-piece Gemstone Truffle Box, came from a visit to the Crown Jewels in England.

Once the chocolates are cooled, we’re ready to learn how to pack them. We fold boxes and pack our treats in plastic gift bags, just the way her staff would in the shop. It gives us a sense of the work it takes to create the chocolates downstairs. Most things—from the painting of shimmer on the tops of truffles to the tying of bows on each package—is done by hand.

Inside the commercial kitchen.
Photo: Catherine Toth Fox

The final part of the tour takes place in the shop itself. We get to watch the real chocolatiers in action in the small kitchen behind the retail shop. (They’re a lot faster and more accurate than we are, for sure!)

We finish in the retail space, where we’re able to pick a truffle from the showcase. On any given day, it sells about 20 different kinds of truffles, filled with everything from lilikoʻi to lychee. The shop even makes special liqueur-filled truffles with Dom Perignon Champagne, mai tai, Kahlua, Guinness beer and Japanese sake.

Choco leʻa’s soft cream.
Photo: Catherine Toth Fox

I grab the rainbow shave ice flavor—my son’s favorite—and opt to buy a cup of soft cream, a new produce Uehara launched a few months ago after perfecting her version of the popular Hokkaido soft cream in Japan. It’s quickly become my guilty pleasure.

This tour gives me another excuse to eat chocolate—so I can’t complain.

The hands-on tour is at 11 a.m. Wednesdays only. Cost is $299 for up to four people. Additional guests can be added on for a maximum of eight people per tour. All guests must be able to walk up one flight of stairs. Recommended for ages 10 and up. Minimum age is 5 years old, with an accompanying adult. Book online.