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“Originality comes after the accumulation of basic knowledge”

Today’s story teller is a world class chocolatier, Jean-Paul Hevin.

He is French but he has opened five sweets shops around Tokyo.

In the article, he told his history and about his great teacher.

Hevin’s father loves sweets and his mother loves cooking.

When he was in early teen, he wanted to be an office worker, so he was going to go an electric engineering school; however, he mistook the application date and decided to pastry school, where he got enslaved by making sweets.

Looking back to those days, Hevin talked about the teacher who gave him great influence.

The teacher, Mr. Gautier, was a drawing teacher at his school.

According to Hevin, the education in France tries to develop individualities, and they often take children to museums to cultivate children’s originalities.

Mr. Gautier always questioned his students to bring out their original ideas.

Hevin’s word

“What Mr. Gautier told me strictly was ‘work has to be done precisely and cleanly.’ His teaching went to details including how to create beautiful forme and flavor. He told me that the originality comes after the accumulation of basic knowledge.”

Hevin took Mr. Gautier’s teaching into his sweets making, and he thoroughly studied the flavors made by mixing different ingredients.

He tried hard with the “I will learn everything!” spirit.

His effort bore fruit and he was awarded Meilleur Ouvrier de France (One of the Best Craftsmen of France).

The NIKKEI Aug/14/2009  by Jean-Paul Hevin (chocolatier)

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