YORK has loudly laid its claim on the title of chocolate city during the year that saw the first chocolate festival in the city and the opening of a new chocolate attraction.

The title is based on the wonderful things confectioners have done with chocolate when cocoa is imported into the city, but the north of England’s temperamental climate has not favoured local production.

But now, York chocolatier Sophie Jewett has brought ten cocoa plants to the city, five of which are located in a greenhouse at Goddards, the former home and gardens of famous chocolate-making family, the Terrys, which is to reopen on July 21 after part of the house was opened to visitors wanting to find out more about the city’s chocolate past.

The other five, currently being kept in Sophie’s shower, are to be rehoused at her business, York Cocoa House in Blake Street.

Sophie has obtained the plants as part of a project being carried out by a research centre based at the University of Reading, which is leading the world’s fight to ensure the sustainability of cocoa production.

The university, which is home to the International Cocoa Quarantine Centre, has received funding from the main chocolate companies to carry out a five-year project to assess the threat climate change poses to cocoa, and researchers are aiming to help to develop new cocoa varieties better suited to likely future climates. Sophie said it was not the first time cocoa had been grown in the city.

“We were motivated by Rowntrees, which had an atrium based up at what is now the Nuffield Hospital,” she said. “So it’s not impossible, it has been done previously. It would be wonderful to produce York cocoa.”

But she warned the plants were very young, and they could take about three years or so to flower, and three to five years to grow cocoa pods if they are successful.