Wednesday, May 20, 2026

I tend to be pessimistic about India in general, but there are aspects of the country and the culture that I like and am happy to support. Indian chocolates are one of those aspects. India does grow cocoa beans, notably in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Indian cocoa production is less than 2% of the Ivory Coast, the world’s largest producer of cocoa beans, so Indian production is relatively small. Still, there are chocolates made with Indian cocoa beans and I was eager to try a few.

During my last two trips to the motherland, neither of which were for happy reasons, I stumbled upon a shop selling exclusively Indian-made chocolate. Excellent. I bought a few bars and the prices were relatively high, even compared to the imported European equivalents, so I expected decent products. One was from a brand named Ziaho, another was Paul and Mike, the third was from Ray Sugar, and the final one was made by Haldirams. During a trip to Belgium, we also bought some Indian-origin chocolate made by Pierre Marcolini.

Paul and Mike are based in Ernakulam, Kerala but have a cafe in Colaba, Mumbai for some reason? Despite the folky sounding name, the brand is owned by a company called Zenriva Brands. The name itself sounds like it is from Kerala, a state where Western (and Biblical) names are not uncommon, but still, I assume the implication is that Paul and Mike are two Kerala dudes who just wanted to make good chocolate? Who are Paul and Mike anyway? One source on Outlook India suggests that these are two farmers in Latin America. Sure, but where in Latin America? There’s a “Chocolate Awards” website that lists this brand as the 2021 bronze winners for “chocolate bars with inclusions or pieces”. Ok. There is scant other information on the inter webs about this company, just a few “articles” that read like paid advertisements. Sure, they won a few awards, but what exactly does that mean in a practical sense?

I tried two of their chocolate flavours, one with Alphonso mango and the other with jamuns and both were rubbish. The chocolate was grainy and the flavour of the fruits was borderline absent. Neither fruit tasted like it was supposed to and the fruit pieces themselves were so dry that they could have been literally any fruit. And to think that I paid top rupee for this nonsense. Reddit reviews generally agree with this sentiment.

The Ziaho chocolates were marginally better. The packaging uses several Indian scripts to describe the flavour, so you see Urdu (yes, Urdu is very much an Indian language), Devanagari, Kannada, Telugu and even Marathi. I liked the narangi and amla flavours, and the prices are reasonable. They do not say where the cocoa is from, so I doubt it is Indian, especially given the price. The actual fruit pieces in the chocolate were… fine. I was not impressed by either flavour, and the chocolate itself is just ok.

The final two brands I tried were from Ray sugar, and Haldirams. The Ray “Sugar” is made by an organization called Ray Health and the packaging claimed that it had no added sugar. I’m sure the word “added” is there for a reason, because the website claims that the chocolate is “naturally sweetened”. The packaging, however, lists sugar alcohols including sorbitol and Maltitol. Maltitol is manufactured by hydrogenating corn syrup, so the claim of “naturally sweetened” is clearly stretching the truth. The chocolate itself is again underwhelming. Grainy, not smooth, and the orange flavour is clearly artificial. The Haldirams chocolate was the worst of the lot. The front of the package did not say that it was white chocolate, the guava flavour was mild, and the chilli flavour quite strong. Not how I like my chocolate and I was so disgusted that I binned the rest of the bar.

The only chocolate I enjoyed was the Pierre Marcolini bar, which was made in Belgium. Yes, the cocoa was grown in Tamil Nadu, so that was technically “Indian” chocolate, but not in the way that I prefer. As much as I like to support non-Western brands, I must admit that I was disappointed by every single Indian made chocolate bar that I bought. Some were just terrible and most were not worth the asking price. I would not recommend a single Indian brand among those I tried. I would honestly recommend that people just stick to Amul’s chocolates, especially the dark chocolates. They really are quite good.

The internet does list a couple of other Indian chocolates that I will attempt to procure in the future. Sihi Chocolate and Manam are two on my radar.