In the summer of 1995, I attended the International Fancy Food Show in New York as exhibitor for Kevton Gourmet; even though we had been manufacturing our teas for several years. At that time we only made our teas in the 25 count wood box and the fabric sampler bags of tea in seven flavors.

My mother and father were gracious enough to stay in Texas and watch our three children, one of which was an infant. For some reason, I’m not sure of; she made flavored cocoa for the kids in the very hot months of summer. Upon our return, she made us each a cup along with the children’s now regular nightly cup. It was delicious, and an old family recipe. In the following week, my parents were getting ready to go home to Utopia in the Texas Hill country, a good five hour drive away. I asked my mother for her recipe. She never measures anything, and she tried real hard to write out a recipe.

A few weeks later when her supply had run out, I took my so called recipe and tried to make my mother’s cocoa. Well I am industrial cook and when I pored the pure cocoa and industrial flavors, I totally messed up my Mom’s recipe. My parents were traveling and unavailable for questioning. So instead of throwing away my messed up cocoa, I went to work "fixing it".

The end result was to die for smooth (better than Mom’s). Of course, I sent some to her for her approval. In fact, it was months before she admitted that it was better than her family recipe.