“Bean-to-bar is just a process. What you create with the chocolate is a craft. Craft chocolate is clean chocolate; there is nothing else to it. So I keep focusing on that. And that has to start at the level of the farmer.” Sanjana Patel (@chefsanjana), Creative Director and Executive Chef at La Folie (@lafolierealchocolate), takes us on a trip to the 22-acre @chempottyestate in Karnataka for the organic farm’s cacao harvest — the ideal setting to coax out of her how she overhauled her thinking about her chocolate-forward approach. In the process, she was redirected towards her calling: from making desserts with quality natural imported ingredients to creating a brand of home-grown, hyperlocal craft chocolate that she could control at the source. Talking about her first interactions with Tamil Nadu-based cacao growers, who were accustomed to playing by the rules of the industrial chocolate makers they had been supplying the foreign crop to, Patel says, “Back then I don’t think they saw cacao as being very valuable. They didn’t even know it was called cacao. They called it ‘Cadbury tree’.” The cultural disconnect on part of the farmers aside, the commercial viability of competing for the palate of consumers who might have grown up on international chocolate brands was also in question. “I think culturally, at some level, we have lost value for what is home-grown.” Via an intimate first-person account, we get an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Patel’s immersive journey towards sustainability at every level. Her deep commitment to sourcing organic single-origin cacao from fair-trade cooperatives and nurturing relationships with like-minded collaborators invested in local communities is the starting point. And it aptly sets the ground for an ethical bean-to-bar process that combines her artistry with heart, to yield the expansive flavour profiles that her finely handcrafted small-batch chocolate is now synonymous with. Full feature at the link in bio. Text and photography: @mallikachandra __ #IndianChocolate #BeanToBar #GoLocal #Chocolatiers