Chocolate makes us happy. It is popular, everyone knows it, and it is not prophecy. It is enough to smell it or talk about it and our mood changes. And this is because science assures us that it connects with certain molecules we produce, endorphins (the so-called "happiness hormones") and serotonin, and then they generate a sensation of well-being, pleasure, and emotional relaxation.

The price of cocoa fell by more than 45% in 2025 after a 2024 marked by a sharp increase due to poor harvests in the main producing country, Ivory Coast, and the entry of speculative funds into wholesale markets. However, for the moment, the cost of chocolate for consumers has not yet adjusted to the decrease in the price of cocoa and remains above the levels of a few years ago.

Everyone stops. The windows of Bombonería Almera are like a mesmerizing flame. It's impossible not to be captivated by this historic shop. In fact, Pedro Almodóvar himself once came in, hoping to feature it in one of his films. I'm standing at the door when I run into a lifelong customer. She's come to buy two boxes of chocolates for some friends. She says her mother, who lived well into her nineties, came here to buy sweets her whole life. Receiving a gift from Ca l'Almera, as any Badalona resident will call it, is always a big celebration. Because of the quality and the love they put into wrapping the packages. On Sunday, their day off, Teresa Almera was inside the shop making bows, of all things. "Nobody makes bows anymore," she tells me. Teresa is the kind of shopkeeper who doesn't count the hours and who lives her work with enthusiasm for preserving her grandfather Cinto's legacy.

The chocolate tile filled with pistachio praline and toasted pastry kataifi (a type of filo pastry) has become a mass phenomenon that has divided chocolatiers into two camps: those who don't want to know anything about it, because they find it commercial; and those who have started making it because they consider it to be as good an invention as After Eight, which was created in the United Kingdom in 1962. The fact is that this innovative chocolate tile, created by the Egyptian Sarah Hamouda in 2022, has a high price due to the filling, specifically the praline, the pistachios with sugar, because the nuts cost around thirty euros per kilo. Therefore, the chocolatier Lluc Crusellas He says that "if you find a Dubai chocolate for two euros, it's a fake Dubai tile, without pistachios."

It's not documented, there's no way to find it written down in contemporary newspapers or books, but Joan Mach, owner of Granja Dulcinea (c. Petritxol, 2) in Barcelona, maintains that it was his father, an opera singer, who one day thought of putting whipped cream on top of the melted chocolate. "He said it would remind me of the mountains of Switzerland, the ones he had seen on his travels to give concerts," says his son, who shares his father's name. Whatever the case, Granja Dulcinea is a cult place for those who like to dip their melindro (sweet roll) or churros ("they're more fashionable than ever," he says) in hot chocolate, which they prepare by mixing two different brands.

"When you see how they unload the truck, you already know who will be on the podium," says a chocolatier who has been part of the jury of the World Chocolate Masters, the competition that made us discover a name: Lluc Crusellas, the boyfriend of Santa Eulàlia de Riuprimer which in 2022 won the most precious trophy in the world of cocoa. And all this, long before anyone thought he could win – well, someone did think that, we'll get to that – was recorded by Jordi Torra. A material that has now been transformed into a documentary and that could be seen at the Atlántida in Vic.