Part 1I want jobs that make me want to skip
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- Our Steiff-themed chocolate collaboration is finally complete, and the finished product turned out even cuter than we imagined. Take a look!
- Tsuchiya
- (Opens the lid) Wow, it’s so dainty! The strawberry, caramel, and milk chocolate flavors are packed together so nicely.
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- When we first started the project, we thought about matching the chocolate colors to the three bears illustrated on the tin. But they’re all shades of brown, so it would have been a little too subdued. That’s when we thought it would be nice to include pink.
- Tsuchiya
- It really adds something. All three of these flavors are characteristically sweet, and that emphasizes their cuteness.
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- They are quite sweet. It’s a contrast to your original Caviar Chocolate line, which is made with really dark chocolate.
- Tsuchiya
- Caviar has a really serious image to it, so some people may be intimidated by it. But these three colors aren’t intimidating at all—when you open the lid, you’re greeted by a really lovely sight. Adults and children alike would be delighted to receive this chocolate, so it’s an easy choice as a gift.
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- There’s something very cute about this Caviar Chocolate, but once you try one it’s also pretty addicting. You can eat them one at a time, or mix the flavors by trying several at once. I told myself I’d just have one more, and before I knew it the tin was empty. It was an experience I’d never really had before.
- Tsuchiya
- The reason for Caviar Chocolate being the greatest success at Theobroma is the way our customers can snack on a little of our chocolate and then find themselves wanting more the more they eat.
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- I think our initial request for this project was pretty crazy: “As long as we’re making a chocolate-colored Steiff techo cover, why not make actual chocolate?” I must ask, why did you take on such a strange request?
- Tsuchiya
- I’ve always loved Steiff, so I knew I wanted to do it. I want to work on jobs that make me want to skip around the kitchen.
- ――
- Skipping, you say?
- Tsuchiya
- It can take a real toll on your mental state to only work on things you’re not interested in. I don’t want to spend my time working on jobs I don’t want to do, so I look for the kind of jobs that make me want to skip around while I’m working on them.
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- How many Steiff teddy bears do you have at your house?
- Tsuchiya
- I think I’ve got about ten. My wife had a really traditional Steiff bear when she lived in London. I can remember buying our first family bear thirty years ago, before we were married, at a small shop in the Aoyama area. After we got married, whenever I was in Europe I’d buy them for birthdays, gifts for our children, things like that. We had them in the house because they made the family happy, but I found myself falling in love with them, too. What I like is that you can tell they’re handmade by European artisans. Sure, they’re more expensive, but it’s what you would expect given their quality.
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- They really do exude that craftsmanship. So thanks to your longtime Steiff fandom, we were lucky enough to work with you on this chocolate.
- Tsuchiya
- I was very interested in this project. Being able to work on something that’s an extension of your hobbies is a perfect situation; it makes me happy to think of other Steiff fans enjoying our chocolate. We’re planning to stock plenty in Theobroma. I love the thought of someone who happens to love Steiff coming in, seeing what we make for the first time, and buying some because they think it’s cute. It’s just a shame I won’t be able to see them enjoying it.
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- That’s true—chocolate is something you take home to enjoy later. But this will make a lot of people happy.
- Tsuchiya
- A chef at a restaurant can watch the patrons enjoy their meals, but when you bake cakes or make chocolates you don’t have that connection. If a man buys something as a gift for a woman, you don’t see the joy she feels when she receives it. A pastry chef has to operate on trust.
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- It must be so rewarding to see someone enjoy something you’ve made. So what’s something that’s rewarding for a pastry chef?
- Tsuchiya
- I love the process of molding a concrete thing from shapeless materials. For instance, if you’re cooking a meal, you can see the ingredients and imagine the final result. A meat dish will be organized around the meat, or seafood will be organized around the fish.
But cakes are made with completely shapeless ingredients: flour, sugar, eggs. They come together to create something that’s decorated even further, and ultimately it makes someone’s day. Even with this project — when Hobonichi approached me we were strangers discussing a Steiff project, and out of that formless start we produced this chocolate. I’m so happy when I’m able to bring delight to other people that way. I can’t think of a better profession than one that allows you to make a living by making others happy.
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- Caviar Chocolate is Theobroma’s flagship project. I can see your unique personality in this line, but how did you come up with it?
- Tsuchiya
- We’ve been selling Caviar Chocolate for over fifteen years now. There aren’t many opportunities to eat caviar in Japan, but I lived in France for five-and-a-half years to study chocolate, starting when I was 21, so it felt more familiar to me there. Well-to-do homes in France always keep a stock of the three C’s.
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- The three C’s?
- Tsuchiya
- Chocolate, Champagne, and Cigarettes. Three indulgences. When I was at chocolate shops in France, customers would stop by to smoke or buy chocolate and champagne as a gift. Those wealthy customers usually go home at the end of the day and enjoy caviar, so there are caviar specialty shops in France.
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- Wow, shops just for caviar.
- Tsuchiya
- We can’t even imagine that in Japan. Those shops are empty most of the time, but at the end of the day people are lined up out the door. There was a caviar specialty shop near the chocolate shop where I worked, so it was a luxury that was still very familiar to me.
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- So you could say it’s a symbol of indulgence for you, having spent your early twenties in France.
- Tsuchiya
- It’s something that’s hard to get; you don’t enjoy it on an everyday basis. It might be more familiar to think of champagne as something that’s too expensive for you to drink on a daily basis, but if you’re at a fancy restaurant you’ll consider splurging on a glass. That’s how I think of caviar; it’s something special that I want to link to champagne and chocolate.
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- When you first thought up the concept of Caviar Chocolate, did you think it would be a hit?
- Tsuchiya
- I had no idea at first. Who knows if chocolate in the shape of caviar pearls will sell or not, right? But my manager had a good feeling about it, and we started with a run of 20,000 tins.
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- Wow, 20,000 tins! That’s a strong opening order.
- Tsuchiya
- Usually we didn’t even make more than 1,000 tins of something. Even the tin itself is an expense that makes it hard to contribute to that kind of production, so 20,000 was unheard of.
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- Paper cartons certainly are cheaper than these tins. It must have been a hard decision.
- Tsuchiya
- Even now I’m not sure exactly why we made so much. But even so, we sold out immediately and the 20,000 tins ended up not being enough. I don’t know if my manager was clairvoyant or if we just got lucky, but that ambitious order was right.
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- Does that mean business was going well enough at Theobroma at the time that you could afford to make such a big gamble?
- Tsuchiya
- The shop had been open for about three years by the time we created Caviar Chocolate. Thankfully, from the time we opened we’ve never found ourselves struggling. We’ve had 20 profitable years.
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- Wow, ever since it opened? That’s wonderful.
- Tsuchiya
- It has nothing to do with me, though. The business opened in 1999, and in 2000 there just happened to be a chocolate boom. If I’d opened in 1989 I would have been too early, and I don’t think it would have worked out if I had been too late, either. Since the shop opened right before the boom, all I could do was carry on without knowing where it would lead me. Then the boom hit by chance after a year. I had 20 years of experience before I opened my own shop, but over half the shops that opened after the chocolate boom began have since vanished.
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- It takes more than just riding a wave to be successful.
- Tsuchiya
- I didn’t think about taking big chances, or running a shop based on what’s trendy. I only knew how to make chocolate, so I made chocolate. It’s the same approach I take today. I’ve got four shops open now, and that’s plenty. We only put them in places where I can go see them for myself.
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- There have been six iterations of flavors and tin designs for the Caviar Chocolate series since its inception. The original tin featured an illustration of a sturgeon, and for this project we were able to make a tin with an illustration of Steiff teddy bears. How do you think Theobroma customers will respond to the new tin?
- Tsuchiya
- I think it’s really cute, and I like how it turned out. Steiff fans will definitely go crazy for the artwork on here. I’ve been making Caviar Chocolate for 15 years, and the changing tin designs may be one of the reasons it’s gone on this long. There are tin collectors out there, and this size is ideal for storing earrings or gems or small accessories. They prefer to have something charming sitting in the kitchen or the corner of the bathroom sink. Chocolate keeps well, so it’s got a nice shelf life, or you can carry it around with you. You can keep it in your bag or in a desk drawer. Chocolate-lovers like to keep it on hand when they’re out and about. Some of our customers just stop by to buy some more because their tin is running low.
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- Yeah, this tin is nice and portable. It’s easy to snack from.
（Continued)
