Taste of chocolate from the days of her grandfather
Zeba Kohli clasps a piece of chocolate between her fingers, palm reached out, looking at it. She feels its appeal, noticing whether it is reddish, dark brown, light brown, black or white. She rubs the piece with her fingers, coaxing the texture, feeling the coco butter melting. It is the way to identify real coco butter chocolate from compound chocolate.
Smelling the chocolate, inhaling the aroma and fragrance veiled around the piece, Zeba tries to catch the notes of wood, grass, ash, smoke or blackberry even tobacco. When the piece goes into the mouth….it brings out all the sensations of the chocolate. Zeba lets the piece swivel around the mouth as chewing immediately is just not the way to taste chocolate. She holds her nose with her thumb and forefinger, swallowing the subtle tastes, exhaling into the chocolate, noticing its texturecreamy, smooth, dry or grainy.
“Chocolate can be eaten and must be eaten with all the five senses,” Zeba says, finishing the chocolate tasting.
#IndulgePerM2 is an innovative chocolate range created by none other than India’s most renowned chocolatier Zeba Kohli, who calls herself ‘Willy Wonki’(the female version of Roald Dahl’s fictional character Willy Wonka who owns a chocolate factory).
Hafele Sri Lanka, a premier kitchenware brand, hosted a collection of chocolate installations and artworks exclusively created by Zeba on August 3 at Hafele Design Studio, Colombo. The showroom’s counter tops were filled with designer chocolates in dark, brown and white, turning the place into a chocolate haven.
Philanthropist and entrepreneur, Zeba heads Fantasie Fine Chocolates, her family business started in 1946 from Mumbai. As a passionate chocolatier Zeba reinvented and revamped the brand by creating an eclectic range of flavours and chocolate inventions.
Recalling her first memories of chocolate, Zeba relates how she woud run to the chocolate store from school as any other child would do. “For me chocolate is something made and packed with love as my grandmother used to do,” Zeba says. The family business, Fantasie Fine