Two interns at America’s Test Kitchen of Brookline attended the lecture after hearing about the series last year. Rebekah M. Tsang, who graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in New York in 2008, has a background in pastry making. “I have done a lot of chocolate work before and I wanted to get more information,” she said.

Her fellow intern, Beth R. Burgstahler, said she hoped the lecture would be an educational opportunity. “The next time I work with chocolate, I’ll know more about it,” she said.

Another attendee, Catherine M. Norwood of Somerville, Mass., heard about the lecture series from a friend, though she did not know how he found out.

“There might be an underground network in Boston where food news gets around,” she suggested, smiling. A chemist, Norwood enjoyed the scientific and technical explanations that permeated the lecture.

Meanwhile, three employees of Taza Chocolate, a chocolate maker based in Somerville, Mass., attended the lecture because Morató is taking a tour of their facilities today.

Though the majority of attendees were not affiliated with Harvard, some were undergraduates. One group of freshman women went after seeing the poster around campus. After the lecture, Audrey M. Vernick ’15 tasted Morató’s parting gift, a milk chocolate covered caramel with a cream of pine nuts, and closed her eyes in gastronomic ecstasy. “Unreal,” she said.