Bitter, sweet symphony

If life is like a box of chocolates from this store, there's little to worry about. We take a walk through Mumbai's newest premium chocolate shop, packed to the hilt with our favourite global brands

Truffles from Belgium, caramel bars from Great Britain, bitter chocolate from Finland, mints and jellies from the United Statesu00a0-- the newly inaugurated outlet of the international chain, The Cocoa Trees opened in Mumbai has something for every chocolate lover.

Opened barely a week ago, the 300-square-foot store at Breach Candy stocks 20 of the world's top chocolate brands, including Anthon Berg and Fazer, seldom seen in India. There's also the more-familiar Cadbury, but in a variety of flavours such as peppermint, roasted almonds, macadamia, milk, caramel and snack bar (Dairy Milk filled with raspberry, cherry, citrus, pineapple and coconut ice compote), to name a few.

Some of these brands can be spotted on the shelves of shops at Crawford Market or in stores such as Alfa at Vile Parle. "... But our chocolates cannot be compared to something you get at local shops, since most of those are copies of the originals," says Jaikishen Daryanani, managing director of the chain in India.
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The company supplies some of the imports to gourmet stores including Godrej Nature's Basket and HyperCity, but the cream of the crop is off limits to everyone else. Try finding the purple pack of Hershey's Kisses if you don't believe us.

Roots of the Tree
Loo Li Giam, Paul, CEO of Singapore-based FOCUS Network Agencies, the company that owns The Cocoa Trees, believes that each chocolate is a cocoa seed and with new additions to the brand, the tree never ceases to grow. "Chocolate makers around the world are continuously creating new flavours and our company aims to bring them to the local market," he says.

What's in store?
As a part of their two-day opening celebrations, the store had flown down Chef Kevin Zhang from their Singapore store to demonstrate chocolate making and dipping. The chef taught onlookers how to make chocolates using everyday ingredients such as fruits, nuts and cereals.

The Cocoa Trees plans on having more such events when they launch new products. "During festivals such as Diwali and Christmas we will sell hampers and goodies to help people breakaway from gifting typical Indian mithais to something more chic," 33 year-old Daryanani adds.

For children, contests will be held every few monthsu00a0 eating the most number of lollipops and collecting the highest number of toys found in chocolate boxes. For adults, there will be chocolate trivia quizzes and the winner will be awarded huge chocolate hampers, the owners promise.

After-taste
The store is top-notch in terms of quality and variety but scores low on customer-friendliness. If only they coupled the chocolate-buying experience with tasting samples and helped buyer's choices to suit their taste buds, this would have been memorable experience.