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After a successful career as director of communications for an international software company, Hadley (Weiss) Rosen joined forces with her father, Jim Weiss, to launch Chocolena in 2022. In just a few years, the fine chocolate startup has grown from a small operation into a thriving business whose products can be found in specialty shops throughout New England. A certified professional chocolatier, Rosen approaches chocolate with equal parts creativity and discipline. Along the way, she has discovered that great chocolate is about more than flavor — it is about storytelling, craft, and creating memorable experiences.

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Why fine chocolate?
Working in the food business has been in my family since the early 1900s. My paternal great-grandfather and his five sons owned a grocery store, and I recall going back to the butcher counter in my grandfather’s arms as a child. When my dad retired, he wanted to open a small food business. He considered ice cream but ultimately decided on chocolate. He loved that chocolate is an international product, and it makes people happy. 

My dad started Pomfret Chocolates after retiring from his career as a financial advisor (He ran Weiss & Hale Financial with Laurence Hale ‘91). In 2020, he closed Pomfret Chocolates due to the pandemic, and I left my role at the software company to be home with my two young children. In 2022, we decided to go into the chocolate business together and opened Chocolena. 

How did you learn about making chocolate?
Like my dad, I enrolled in the certified professional chocolatier program at Vancouver’s École Chocolat. It was a robust online program that included writing papers and learning how to temper chocolate at home, which was a little frightening in my all-white kitchen. I graduated with honors and absolutely loved the experience. 

How has your business evolved over the past few years?
When we started Chocolena, we were operating out of GastroPark in West Hartford, where I live. As we evolved and focused our product line, we outgrew that space and built our own kitchen in Pomfret. We have our own Selmi machines for tempering chocolate, a tasting room, and space for packaging. It’s a great location for our employees to work. 

Our sales method has changed as well. While we still do some pop-ups, markets, and direct-to-customer sales, our focus has shifted to wholesaling our products. We are in eleven shops in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine, and growing every day.

We also have a large corporate gift and favor piece of our business that lets us get creative. We work with companies, brides and grooms, and party planners to design unique gifts and favors that match an event’s theme or a company’s brand. It’s really fun for us! 

How has your product evolved since establishing Chocolena?
We started our business making filled, hand-painted bonbons and chocolate bark. We have recently focused on making chocolate bars, solid chocolate items, delicious chocolate-covered caramels, and chocolate-covered marshmallows.

Tell us about your Connecticut Artist Series. 
This year, we created the five-bar Connecticut Artist Series — with two dark, two milk, and one white chocolate bar. Each one features a local artist’s work on the packaging, and we tried to create the chocolate to match their artwork. In creating Matt’s Pineapple and Raspberry Sorbet bar, we were inspired by Matt Walas’s painting, which has a tropical feeling. We wanted to develop a flavor to emulate his work.

What is your favorite flavor combination?
We have eaten so much chocolate, but I really like the combination of milk chocolate and coffee. I am a big coffee drinker, and it’s such a classic flavor. I also really like milk chocolate and caramel.

Have you ever created a flavor that surprised you by becoming a customer favorite?
We started with a very dark chocolate bar, 72 percent cacao. Then we added ground cacao nibs, which are extremely crunchy, very sour, and bitter. We finished by adding fleur de sel sea salt on top. I first thought, “This is too dark. There's no way people will like it. It's too salty.” But we tried it out and made it into a bar, Suzie's After Dinner Bar. It has been our bestseller by far. We often sell out, and at an event last week, we sold out immediately. People try a sample, they love it, and buy some for themselves and as gifts. We're really surprised by the success and how much people love it. I've grown to love it too.

What do you love about working in fine chocolate?
I love bringing joy to people through our products. Whether it's seeing someone's smile as they try a sample or hearing from customers who gave our chocolate as a teacher gift or to someone who is sick and they loved it, that really makes us feel good. 

Five years from now, what would you like Chocolena to become?
I would like to see Chocolena have a large retail presence, including grocery stores and smaller retail operations. I also want to bring Chocolena to people around the world. We are so fortunate to have our customers who have been with us since our Pomfret Chocolate days. They keep spreading the word, so anything is possible! 

Are there any dream products or collaborations you would like to achieve?
We already have so many wonderful partnerships — including The Hill-Stead Museum, R. J. Julia, and Avon Fine Meats — and collaborations with local businesses like Two Dogs Coffee. My dad has such a natural gift for going into a store and successfully asking them to carry our chocolate bars. 

It would be my dream to learn from French chocolatier Cédric Grolet. He creates remarkable trompe l'oeil confections — desserts designed to deceive the eye. It looks like cacao pod, but when you cut it open, there's chocolate mousse inside. There are so many wonderful people in France doing innovative things with chocolate right now — and I'm thankful for the French learned at Pomfret as I use it often! 

How did your Pomfret Experience help you in your chocolate business?
My experience learning French and traveling to France in Jim Rees’s class opened my eyes to a new world and culture that I love. My English teachers helped me to learn to speak and express myself clearly. Those skills helped me in my early career and have continued to help me so much in the Chocolena business. My math teachers taught me perseverance. David Brewster, my art teacher, gave me creative freedom and the ability to grow. 

If you were to make a chocolate bar that represents Pomfret School, what would it be?
I would have to make something super sweet because my experience was so sweet, and it would need a touch of red. I would probably use 72 percent dark chocolate, add some freeze-dried raspberries, and fill it with caramel — just for the sweetness.
 

photo credit: Ryan Marketing

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