For years every time I returned home to India from the USA there were always a few must-carry gifts.
Fancy Soaps. Cosmetics. And Chocolates. The names sounded like incantations to some. Willy Wonka. Kitkat. Toblerone. Hersheys. Godiva. Lindt.
When an aunt gave us a box of assorted Godiva chocolates our family of 4 would carefully carve each one into four, so we all got a taste of every varietal. And then we discovered a whole new world - small batch, single origin, artisanal, bean to bar.
What I didn’t know was much of it existed thanks to an odd story of immigration and serendipity and nostalgia for a home left behind says Chaitanya Muppala, Founder of Manam Chocolate & CEO of Distinct Origins
CM1: The humble Coimbatore wet grinder, which is fancily labeled as a melange in the chocolate world, changed the history of chocolate
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata
So what is the Coimbatore wet grinder? It’s a little machine with granite stones to grind food grains like rice to produce wet batter. That’s a mainstay of South Indian food to produce the batter for things like dosas and idlis, the crepes and rice cakes.
CHaitanya says it started with a South Indian immigrant couple in Atlanta, Georgia,
CM2: Mrs. Aandaal and Mr. Balu. They run Cocoa Town and Cocoa Town. Is this company small company in Atlanta, Georgia.
They started importing wet grinders from India. Their market was the Indian diaspora craving homestyle foods like dosas and idlis.
But those wet grinders found a market beyond homesick Indians.
CM4:they started observing that a lot of these machines were being picked up in these crafty, hipster areas of San Francisco and Europe,
Not for idlis and dosas.
CM5: they realize that people are buying these machines to make chocolate.
The Coimbatore wet grinder changed the scale.
CM6: for the entirety of the history of chocolate, it has been the ambit of large industrial production, huge capital, largely also because of the history of how this commodity grew in colonies.
The early chocolate companies were all huge multinationals. Chocolate was made on an industrial scale. Until now thanks to the wet grinder.
CM7: Now, this application of this grinder kind of changes everything, right? Because you can now make chocolate in ten, 15, 20, 50 kilogram batches.
Chaitanya says he met the couple at a large craft chocolate festival in Amsterdam
CM8:They must be around 70 now, I would guess. And they kind of remind me of my parents.
And they were excited to see a craft chocolatier from India. Chaitanya says as he looked around the hall with 100-120 chocolate makers from around the world he realized something
CM9: All of these brands wouldn't have existed. But for, this couple
Because in the world of craft chocolate everybody uses a melanger.
CM10: they might not buy it from them. But, you know, it's they make it on a machine that kind of has come from that root, the idli grinder
Even though not many were aware of their chocolate debt to this unassuming couple
CM11: Nobody acknowledges the fact that we exist because of somebody like them, or we exist because of this idli grinder from Coimbatore.
And that’s partly because no one thinks of chocolate and India in the same breath anyway. Not even Indians.
Until we stop and think that chocolates we grew up craving were Swiss and Belgian, from countries where the cacao bean does not even grow.
Cacao grows in India. And now it’s part of chocolates like Manam.
CM12: the specificity can go to a very granular level. For example, we have single farm bars where we have farmers names printed on the packaging.
Indian craft chocolate isn’t just about adding some Indian flavors to chocolate like cardamom and saffron or fruits like Alphonso mango and Indian custard apples. It’s about the terroir. It’s about process. Its about the bean.
CM13: The goal is to produce a very high quality, fine flavor cacao bean that makes for complex, interesting craft chocolate.
And to make Indian chocolate count.
CM14: And the goal is to get craft chocolate makers globally to recognize India as a growing fine flavor destination
So last time when I went to America from India, I turned the tables, I took craft chocolates from India as gifts for my friends in America.
Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory could be right here in my own backyard.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata for KALW.