Mimo in Use: Hershey Chocolate Taste Room
The Hershey’s Chocolate World located in Hershey, Pennsylvania has an exciting new attraction that is a must-visit for chocolate lovers around the world: the Hershey Chocolate Tasting Experience. Filled with the smells, sights and sounds of chocolate, Hershey’s tasting experts will teach you how to engage your senses when tasting chocolate of all varieties. Mimo Monitors are a key part of the experience. Our Magic Touch 10-inch monitors are stationed at every table, providing a crisp visual interactive experience for each taster. Visitors use this small monitor with capacitive and responsive sense technology to vote on the taste of each piece of chocolate and identify different undertones.
The Room
The Hershey’s Chocolate Tasting Experience takes place in a small, intimate multimedia room within Hershey’s Chocolate World. There are a number of tasting stations situated in this room. On each tasting station you will find a bag with four types of chocolate, a small container of raw cacao nibs, and a Hershey’s Kiss to start you off. You are provided with water to cleanse your pallet between tastings. And of course there is a state-of-the-art Mimo Magic Touch touchscreen at every station that each visitor can use to vote for the chocolate flavour they just experienced.
The Process
An area coordinator will lead you through the experience. There are well over 600 different flavours associated with chocolate, and the guide will show you how to experience them. The tasters are given a flavour wheel that indicate specific notes of chocolate, like cherry, jasmine, vanilla and brown sugar. You are asked to look at the chocolate, listen as you break it, smell it and then finally taste it. While tasting it, you are asked not to chew the chocolate, but to let it melt on your tongue. While it is melting, you are asked to concentrate on the flavours. Using the bright and beautiful small screen, you are then asked to vote on the dominant flavour you experienced and to compare it with the experts.
The Results
It’s important to understand that there really are no wrong answers. What you taste is what you taste. From the earthy, floral tastes of a strong dark chocolate, to the milky, nutty taste of a milk chocolate bar. What you are experiencing in the Hershey Chocolate Tasting Room is the process that actual taste testers go through when Hershey is developing new types of chocolate. It is an interesting “behind the scenes” experience, and if you’re ever in Hershey, PA you should absolutely stop by and embrace the opportunity.