Over the past decade, a quiet revolution has begun to melt into India’s local ‘farm-bean-to-bar’ chocolate story. From soil to shelf, chocolate in India is being reimagined – not as a borrowed Western indulgence but as something intimate, local, and richly layered. It starts in places you might not expect: on the slopes of Idukki in Kerala, in the red earth of Pollachi, in sun-dappled estates outside Coorg. It continues in small cafés in Goa and tasting rooms in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Delhi where the vocabulary has shifted from ‘bar’ to ‘bean’, and flavour notes speak of Gondhoraj lemon, Himalayan pink salt, Byadgi chilli, jaggery, black pepper, mango, tamarind, kokum, toddy vinegar, filter coffee, and sesame to name a few.
“There’s a tectonic shift underway,” says Zeba Kohli, Mumbai-based chocolatier and one of the earliest champions of premium Indian chocolate. Her family has been in the chocolate business for about 75 years. “Earlier, people thought good chocolate had to come from Belgium or Switzerland,” she says. “Now, they’re asking where the beans are grown. They want to know the story.” Kohli’s love for chocolate is deeply sensory. She speaks about its texture, its mood-lifting
minerals, and its long, fascinating history — from the Mayans and Aztecs who drank bitter cacao in celebration and war, to its colonial journey across oceans. “Chocolate has always been about pleasure,” she says.
“We’re going back to its roots, consuming it the savoury way, as it once was.” Much of this awareness has emerged through food magazines and social media.
“The awakening is happening mostly in media-savvy cities,” she says. Food magazines and influencers have driven a new curiosity about what we eat, and why.
From Farm to Bar
The heart of India’s bean-to-bar movement lies not in sleek packaging or luxury positioning, but on the farm. For decades, Indian cacao was treated as a minor crop. Grown primarily in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka, the beans were usually sold wet to middlemen, who passed them on to multinational conglomerates. Fermentation was haphazard; quality, inconsistent. “It begins on the farm,” says Chef Varun Inamdar, chocolatier and one of India’s most respected voices in cocoa and pastry. “Shade-grown, hand-harvested, consciously fermented, well roasted, perfectly conched, well rested, sensibly packed, keeping the Indian weather in mind. Many parameters there. Then comes honest craftsmanship, minimal manipulation, ingredient integrity.”
This isn’t rhetoric. Inamdar has worked closely with farmers, often in remote regions, helping them understand the importance of fermentation and post-harvest handling. “Great Indian chocolate doesn’t mimic — it reimagines,” he says. “When it sings of its soil, travels with pride, and cooks without a big apology, that’s when it’s world-class.”
Cocoa-holic Living
Brands like Soklet, Paul and Mike, Naviluna, and Manam are leading this renaissance. Soklet grows, ferments, and crafts its chocolate on its own estate in Tamil Nadu, while Paul and Mike works directly with
smallholders in Kerala and beyond. Their bars often feature single-origin sourcing and highlight flavour notes like black pepper, mango, or tamarind.
George C, a cacao farmer at Chempotty Estate, Mysore, says, “When we started farming cacao beans, farmers around us were extremely skeptical about what we were doing.” But India is learning to taste chocolate the way it once learned to sip whisky or grind coffee — with deliberation and curiosity. Zeba says, “For the longest time, good chocolate was defined by whiteness, European packaging, Western flavours. But now we’re rewriting that script. We’re discovering the bean, not just the bar.”
Tastings are now conducted in bookstores and cafes, often hosted in Hindi, Tamil, or Marathi. The idea is not just to sell bars, but to invite people to experience chocolate as they would music or poetry, through mood and memory.
The memories are rich. A bar made with Alphonso mango and Byadgi chilli might evoke summer pickles. Another with jaggery and sesame could transport you to winter mornings in a Delhi household. This is chocolate as a memoir, as an archive.
Trouble With Craft
Of course, craft comes at a cost. Most artisanal chocolate in India retails for Rs 250 to Rs 600 a bar — steep in a market where the Rs 20 bar still dominates. This has raised questions about elitism. “Artisanal often risks being equated with elitism,” admits Avin Thaliath, co-founder and director of Lavonne Academy. “However, the true spirit of craft should be about care, community, and connecting generations.”
Inamdar feels we need systemic farmer education, post-harvest training, and serious R&D. He says the pastry curriculum in India is outdated. “Every school teaches the same Eurocentric method with a few tweaks. No wonder unemployment is so high, and everyone becomes a ‘home-based chocolatier’ without knowing the craft,” he says.
Chocolate as Culture
The most exciting thing about Indian chocolate right now is not its taste, it’s its context. In Goa, chocolate is now paired with kokum or toddy vinegar. In cafés across Pune, it’s served as hot chocolate in ceramic cups, alongside shortbread made from ragi or coconut. Pop-ups in Delhi feature chocolate pairings with natural wine or fermented rice kanji.
What was once considered a Western gift is now an Indian medium of expression.
Still, Just the Beginning
Despite its promise, the Indian chocolate movement is still fledgling. Cold chains are unreliable. Ingredient sourcing remains inconsistent. Many farmers still sell wet beans for lack of training or infrastructure. Most Indians, especially in smaller towns and rural areas, have yet to taste craft chocolate at all.
However, there is something undeniably powerful in this new grammar of flavour. A chocolate bar may seem like a small thing. When it begins with a farmer’s hand, is shaped by local craft, and ends in a moment of deliberate joy, it becomes much more.
Bittersweet moments
What
Bean-to-bar chocolate made in India with local cacao and minimal processing
Where
Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka (regions with the capability to grow cacao)
Flavours
Filter Coffee, Jaggery, Sesame, Chilli, Gondhoraj Lemon
Try At
Manam (Hyderabad, Delhi), Mason & Co. (Pondicherry), La Folie, Mumbai
Fun Fact
Ancient civilisations like the Mayans and Aztecs consumed chocolate as a savoury, spiced drink. India’s bean-to-bar makers are reviving that spirit with local twists.
