“Guess what flavour it is?” There is a mad scramble and chocolates wrapped in colourful foil are unpeeled and popped into the mouth.
It has been a sweet afternoon at the luxurious Kirtilals Showroom in Gandhipuram. In its 75th year, Kirtilals has organised a series of events to commemorate the milestone, and this time around, Zeba Kohli was invited to speak about chocolates.
Seema Mehta (the creative director of the 75-year-old Kirtilals started by her grandfather Kirtilal Kalidas Mehta in 1939) said she struck an instant rapport with Zeba, who, like her, has inherited a 68-year-old legacy of chocolate making. Zeba's grandfather founded Fantasie chocolates in 1946. And, when chocolates and diamonds come together, it is bound to be a special relationship.
Zeba, sporting some stunning ruby earrings that she had borrowed from Kirtilals’ latest collection of beautiful jewellery, said, like wine, chocolates had acquired exclusivity, with connoisseurs speaking of their special notes, flavours, and so on. She then explained about dark chocolate, rich in anti-oxidants, which is claimed to slow down the ageing process. It is also rich in potassium, copper, magnesium and iron, besides a number of vitamins and minerals, she said.
When someone asked her about diabetic chocolates, Zeba sounded a word of caution as she said that sugar-free chocolates were never really completely free of sugars. They are made using sugar alternatives and while no sugar may be used in the manufacturing process, there is always inherent sugar content in the raw material such as the coco butter used to make chocolates.
In order to explain the different tastes and flavours, Zeba distributed boxes of chocolates and urged the gathering to follow her instructions. We had to pick the chocolate she asked us to from our box, shut our eyes and take a bite.
Bittersweet
In the midst of the ensuing ooooooh, yummmmmm and aaaaahs, she explained the composition of each chocolate we had just tasted. Some of them were bitter, others not so. Some of the flavours went from the familiar nutty and fruity to flowery and even grassy. If we were tasting different flavours, Zeba advised a sip of water between different flavours to cleanse the palate.
What followed was a dream-come-true for chocolate lovers (who isn’t one?) who were invited to dip apricots and marshmallows and other delicious morsels into a bowl of hot, satiny chocolate fondue. And, surrounded by the diamonds and rubies, emeralds and gold of Kirtilals’ collection, we did just that. At the end of the session, there was a contest where one had to guess the flavour of a particular chocolate. It was Wasabi. The right answer won the person some more chocolates.
How to be a chocolate snob
Drop names. Speak about single origin chocolate or organic ones. May be, mention the last time you had a Perigord truffle coated with chocolate and some gold dust.
The options are many to impress the snobs, but go with your pleasure and what your palate enjoys the most, says Zeba. Some of the unusual flavoured chocolates that she has tried are horse radish, ketchup, a sea salt and chocolate combo and many more.
However, Zeba, who brought Swiss chocolate brands LINDT and SPRUNGLI to India, says she enjoys the chocolate she buys from a village pettikadai as much as the nose-in-the-air affairs from Switzerland!
Single Origin chocolates
They are all the rage. It means the cocoa used to make these chocolates are sourced from the same farm, sometimes even from the same cocoa tree.
Some of Fantasie’s single origin chocolates are Java, Arriba, Tanzanie and Ecuador. As we bit into the chocolates, Zeba urged us to close our eyes and experience the different notes.
Some chocolates were fruity, others had a distinct caramel taste. Still others were slightly acidic or smelt wonderfully of dried herbs, grass and tropical flowers.
The richness of the soil where the cocoa grows, the nature of the grass where the cows graze, the water, the altitude, everything contributes to the taste of a chocolate.
