At the chocolate capital of the world for a creamy chocolaty Christ...

It took almost 3 decades for me to finally realize that chocolate milk does not come from brown cows. Who would've guessed!?

Jokes apart, a research showed roughly 16-17 million people in the geographical region of the study believed chocolate milk came from brown cows.

But I'd like to know in which farms do they grow wood sticks with chocolate bits on the end?

The farm that grew 45 different flavors of chocolate bit wood sticks must be huge!

No, but seriously, I am only joking. Nevertheless, the plethora of flavors is simply impressive. It makes for a difficult choice. There's the regular milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and white chocolate. Then there's the slightly enhanced flavors with marshmallows and nuts along with the milk or white chocolate. Then there are more complex flavors with liquid caramel and fruity notes to go a long with the sweeter chocolates. And finally, the choice of multiple flavors and liquors.

If I were a little daring I'd go for the espresso flavors but the caffeine would probably dilute my decision making and push me to buy things out of my target range.

When in Belgium, giving into the delicious tales of Kings and chocolate is a must. It isn't a distraction from any plans you might have made since there's chocolate stores always nearby.

I wanted to try out some of the chocolate, especially the ones with higher cocoa content and the infamous "pure cocoa butter" reputation.

The store had a modest collection of everything. A few minutes walk and I'd turn up on the "chocolate street", an aisle with mainly chocolate stores. This store was the first experience.

Have you ever tried chocolate ginger? There were many other chocolate covered fruits and combinations I've never thought of trying. These small treats, some candy canes, chocolate balls, cocoa truffle, dried fruit covered in chocolate and so on were being sold in small baggies.

Since it is Christmas time, the entire store and the products were decorated to match the season.

The chocolate balls you see above were the only products not wrapped in plastic and sold by weight. The only other one were macarons but no one is here to eat those. The teuffle, lemon and caramel chocolate balls I have tried, but the other flavors like speculoos, rum, whiskey and so on, I have never.

The inside section is where all the "speciality" chocolate is. The experience came full circle because of the Chocolate Factory Museum I had visited in Cologne. Here you can see some "large" chocolate sculptures and also gift boxes with chocolate pizzas, chocolate eggs, and a huge chocolate duck.

DROP, STICK, BOMB

These things are the main reason for visiting chocolate stores. Belgian hot chocolate is pretty popular.

In a dining setting, the hot chocolate is served directly from a teapot (or hotchocolate pot).

A lot of places have adopted for the chocolate bomb. It is basically a chocolate ball that is either dipped into hot milk and it explodes before mixing with the milk, or hot milk is poured onto the ball.

The drop and stick is now the easiest and most popular way for to-go options. Just drop the "drop" into hot milk and mix it, or get a stick that is just a chocolate drop stuck to a spoon and mix it on to go to have a yummy hot chocolate.

This is a magical chocolate bomb. It comes in pack of 3s. I turned one around to show you the instructions. This one also has marshmallows inside.

This store had a hot chocolate station. You can recognise places like these from the stations which are usually at the door. Some have boards outside, too.

There is always hot milk bring frothed and kept warm. You can see the machine next to the cups with a small amount of milk in it. The froth gives the Belgian hot chocolate its creaminess and signature taste. The milk is thick, hot, and usually not sweetened.

Once the milk is poured into the cup, you can dip your selected flavor stick into the milk and start mixing.

This was only the first cup. I genuinely liked it. I believe the milk really made all the difference. Also, you can control how much of the chocolate you want to mix into the milk, so with time the flavor is also stronger.

I think it total I had about 3 cups of this from 3 different stores. From here I did end up getting a few chocolate bars, one with pistachio, one with marshmallows, a chocolate bomb and a couple of sticks. They'll come in handy during Christmas celebrations.