Chocolate Museum

This globally unique museum presents the multifaceted history and present of cocoa and chocolate.

Hans Imhoff, a passionate chocolate manufacturer, dreamed of a chocolate museum with a fountain from which chocolate would flow continuously. In 1972, he took over the Stollwerck factory in Cologne's Südstadt district. There, he stumbled upon containers filled with broken machines, packaging materials, and old files that were ready to be hauled away. He had this find examined, refurbished, and restored, laying the foundation for a museum.

After his wife Gerburg Klara Imhoff found the best location for the Chocolate Museum in 1992 in the old main customs office in Cologne's Rheinauhafen, Cologne's new landmark was created and opened just one year later.

Covering more than 4,000 m², this is the most comprehensive exhibition of the history and present day of cocoa and chocolate worldwide. It showcases the diversity of cocoa's 5,000-year cultural history, from the cocoa bean to the praline. Visitors can explore a walk-in tropical greenhouse, learn about cocoa in natural history exhibits, view artifacts from the pre-Columbian cultures of Central America, admire an important collection of Baroque porcelain and silver, and see numerous old machines from the industrialization era. In a glass chocolate factory and chocolate workshop, visitors can experience how chocolate products are manufactured industrially, but also individually by hand.

Here stands the famous 3-meter-high chocolate fountain, in which 200 kg of chocolate constantly bubble up for tasting.