India grows fine cacao. We wanted to prove it.

We began in 2017 in a rented shed in Vatva with one 40-kilo stone melangeur and nine farming families in Idukki who agreed to ferment cacao our way. The deal was simple: they ferment six days in wooden boxes and sun-dry on raised beds, and we pay roughly double the mandi rate for wet beans and take the entire harvest, grade by grade.

Everything after that happens on Sarkhej Road. We roast in 12-kilo batches at 118°C, winnow by hand, and run the stone for a minimum of 48 hours - 72 for the 82% - before tempering to a fixed curve and moulding in 65 g and 125 g. Our ingredient list never runs past three items: cacao, cane sugar, cocoa butter. There is no palm oil, no vegetable fat and no emulsifier in anything we sell.

The hard part in India is not making chocolate, it is moving it. From March to October we pack into insulated cartons with gel ice packs, dispatch only on early-morning slots, and hold parcels back a day when a destination crosses 38°C. We would rather tell you your order is delayed than have you open a bloomed bar in Nagpur in May.