In late 2004 I took advice to write a list of everything I loved, and another list of things people had said I was good at.

I fell in love with the idea of introducing people to the kind of chocolate that first expanded my mind as a teenager, but then really shattered my idea of what chocolate could be, on trying gifts from friends celebrating my first birthday in London.

In May 2005 I registered Chocolate Ecstasy Tours Ltd, bought a domain, and a new friend helped me build a site with Dreamweaver.

Over the past almost-20 years I’ve had 15 brilliant guides assist me in leading tours and tastings to thousands of people. We expanded to offer tours featuring coffee, ice cream, baked goods and patisserie, including one in Brighton.

I’d like to caveat that it wasn’t all smooth sailing. I naively thought that because “everyone loves chocolate” I’d be booked up every weekend from the beginning. With no funds for marketing, it was a much slower start and I got a “real job”, first in Digital Marketing at 3M, then as a Food Buyer for M&S and finally as a Food Developer at McDonald’s UK, while spending my weekends and evenings working on running or growing the tours.

In May 2013 I went all in and this has been my main gig since, alongside consulting for the food industry.

In May 2020 I pivoted to running online Mystery Chocolate Tastings for the public each month, celebrating different chocolatiers and chocolate makers, and also led chocolate tastings for companies like Amazon, Google, Deloitte, Amex, Meta, and many more.

This year I decided to retire the name Chocolate Ecstasy Tours and bring all of the varied work I do under my own name.

Oh, and you might also know me because, every week since 2022, I’ve shared the highlights of my new food discoveries at The Next Delicious Thing and continue to do so. It’s been recommended as a publication on Substack.