Geology student is master chocolatier in spare time
Crafting special Christmas gifts with a cultural theme is his passion
SLOWLY and carefully, with a small paintbrush in hand, Thuso Magonya decorated his newly made chocolates, especially themed for Christmas.
“It takes at least 20 minutes to make each chocolate. It varies, and there’s a special process. You have to melt it carefully, stirring every 30 seconds,” he said, stirring profusely.
As he began pouring white chocolate into special Christmas moulds, Magonya explained that when making an impression of white chocolate on brown, or vice versa, it must go into the freezer for only 15 minutes.
“If you leave it longer than 20 minutes, water droplets form,” he said. “From there the decorating process begins,” he said, excitedly showing off his paintbrushes, edible glitter, snowflakes and mistletoe.
When not focused on his new chocolatiering business Thuso’s Luscious Treats (TL Treats), Magonya balances two jobs and is also a thirdyear geology student at Wits University.
For the past two years Magonya has worked for The Chocolate Den and the Origins Centre museum at Wits.
It’s his passion for the work done at both jobs that got him thinking about how to improve the engagement between South Africa’s cultural history and the contemporary.
He realised a great way to do so was through chocolate-making.
“If you buy a slab of chocolate with a rock art design or the skull of Mrs Ples, you can take that knowledge home with you.
“It’s important for us to embrace our culture and to look at the objects of importance within it. We need to uphold it and experience it because we are starting to lose it. Our exposure is becoming limited,” he said.
But the 22-year-old’s main reason for starting up the business is to fund his National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) loans and, more importantly, to give back to the country.
“After working really hard in matric, I got into Wits, but I had no funding, so I was forced to take a gap year in 2013. I can’t tell you how disappointing it was for me.
“During that year, I worked several different jobs, from selling atchar on the streets to being a waiter and working in a call centre to save enough money for my registration fee so I could apply for NSFAS for 2014,” he explained.
Magonya abides by the philosophy that if you change one person’s life, you can change an entire generation.
“I want to grow my chocolate business so I can employ people to help them put bread on the table. Then they can afford resources like NSFAS or stationery for school so that their children can learn.
“If I grow my business so that I can afford to employ 30 staff members, imagine the impact.”
But Magonya’s life hasn’t been easy. One of six siblings, he grew up in Madabani in rural Limpopo.
“Conditions were tough. I lived in a two-room house made from mud. My mom tried her utmost to ensure that we always had food, but sometimes there wasn’t enough for her to eat and sometimes we went to bed hungry too.
“It was difficult to make friends because most learners at school came from better backgrounds and a lot of the time my mom couldn’t afford to buy us clothes,” he recalled. But in 2007, this all changed. Magonya’s older sister, who had moved to Joburg, asked him to come live with her as she was financially stable.
She enrolled him at Basa Tutorial Institute for High School, where he matriculated in 2012.
But his new business hasn’t come without its challenges.
He tried and failed at getting things off the ground initially, but said he learnt from the mistakes and used the experience to try to bolster his new business.
Magonya hopes to one day work hand-in-hand with the Department of Arts and Culture in a bid to supply his cultural-themed chocolates to museums across the country and even beyond its borders.
“TL Treats owes its existence to Toni Birin and the Chocolate Den. Toni is the one who has continuously encouraged me,” he added.