If you love dark chocolate and love seeing how things are made, you are going to love the Olive & Sinclair Chocolate tour in Nashville, Tennessee. This small company has been creating fair trade artisan chocolates since 2007 so when we discovered that they gave tours, we immediately put it on our list! We were excited to take a tour and see how it’s made!

Hobbies on a Budget received discounts or tickets for the purpose of this post. All opinions are my own. No monetary compensation was received.

Olive & Sinclair Chocolate Tour: Nashville

Olive & Sinclair Chocolate Company is located right in the middle of a residential neighborhood. We thought we were following directions to the wrong place but the GPS took us right to the front door. There is limited parking available on the street.

You will know you are in the right place the minute you walk in the door. It’s not the overwhelming sweetness of milk chocolate, but rather the lingering smell of rich dark chocolate from years of creating the artisan chocolate bars.

You will want to arrive a few minutes early to give yourself time to sample the chocolates in the gift shop before you begin your tour. You will be given a complimentary hair net when you arrive.

The tour takes you through the process from bean to bar where you can see the bags of cacao beans, the sorting process and the roasting machines.

After the roasting process, the fair trade beans are crushed into nibs. At this point, there is no sweetness but you can taste the dark chocolate. The crunchy nibs would be great added to cookies or coffee!

You then move through the factory over to the stone melangers where the nibs are processed on their way to becoming chocolate bars. And of course, you get to taste the liquid chocolate at this point in the process as well. But whether you love the liquified nibs or not is personal taste. Some love it; others not so much. At this point, they still have not added any sugar!

The workers and tour guide love the chocolate making process. You can hear the pride in their voice and see the care in the products as they move the beans from start to finish. Our tour guide Mollie did a great job showing the process and sharing the things that make Olive & Sinclair such a special place.

Once you finish your tour, you are given a few more samples of different varieties and turned loose in the gift shop. It’s impossible to walk out the doors without taking home some of the Smoked Nib Brittle, Duck Fat Caramels or Cinnamon Chili Chocolate Bars.

And of course you don’t want to miss the photo opp outside in front of the chocolate wall!

Things to Know

• Tours operate on the hour and cost $5.00 per person.
• Tours last about 30-40 minutes and involve very minimal walking.
• You are touring a working food processing factory so everyone is required to wear a hair net.
• If you require a stroller or wheelchair, you should call ahead to check on space.
• There are no steps involved in the tour.
• You are given samples as you go through the tour.
• The gift shop offers samples of some of the favorite chocolates but you can of course buy full size products to take home.

Find Olive & Sinclair

1628 Fatherland St.
Nashville, Tennessee
(615) 262-3007

Factory Tour Information

Tours are offered Saturdays only from 10-5 on the hour and each lasts about 30-40 minutes. They are only $5 per person and include samples as well as a complimentary hairnet.
You can make reservations online here.

Website

Have you ever toured a chocolate factory? Do you love seeing how things are made?

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Looking for other things to do in Nashville? Check out American Pickers, Mike Wolfe’s Antique Archaeologystore.