Lectures on Tap- "The True Cost of Chocolate: Origins, Ethics & Craft"

📍 Location: Exact address given in confirmation email

🧠 Lecture: "The True Cost of Chocolate: Origins, Ethics & Craft"

🎤 Speaker: Ruth Kennison

Join us for an unforgettable evening as internationally recognized chocolatier and chocolate educator Ruth Kennison takes you on an eye-opening journey through the hidden story of chocolate. Trace its path from sacred Mayan currency to today’s $100 billion industry built on centuries of colonialism, child labor, and environmental destruction—and discover why that $2 candy bar is far more expensive than it seems.

Ruth will reveal chocolate’s true origins on West African and Latin American farms, where exploited labor powers global profits, and introduce you to the bean-to-bar revolutionaries rewriting the rules. Learn how ethical makers are paying farmers living wages, preserving rare cacao genetics, and proving that when chocolate costs what it should, everyone wins: farmers, makers, and your taste buds.

Founder of The Chocolate Project and director of chocolate education at The Gourmandise School in Santa Monica, Ruth is one of the few U.S. experts who teaches the entire chocolate-making process, from cacao bean to finished bar. By the end of the night, you’ll never look at a chocolate bar—or its price tag—the same way again.

Get a drink, connect, and learn at Lectures on Tap! 🙌

Agenda

6:30 PM – Doors open: find a seat (open seating!), order food & drinks, and expect a bar line—arriving early is key.

6:55 PM – Host introduction

7:00 PM – Lecture begins

7:45 PM – Audience Q&A

8:00 PM – Have 1:1 time with the speaker, mingle with fellow guests, and order another round

8:30 PM – Wrap up.