Coimbatore: What can we possibly make with Moringa leaves - a curry or a poriyal, may be a soup and few other dishes if someone is an innovative cook.
Coimbatore: What can we possibly make with Moringa leaves - a curry or a poriyal, may be a soup and few other dishes if someone is an innovative cook.
Here is someone who has made a white chocolate with Moringa leaves and has won an international award for it too. Arun Viswanathan, Coimbatore's own chocolatier of Chitram Craft Chocolates has won a bronze at 2019 Asia-Pacific – Bean-to-Bar and Chocolatier Competition. It was held in cooperative partnership with the Pingtung County Government (PTHG) and Zun-Long Cultural and Creative Consulting Company in Taiwan. This is the second time Chitra'm Craft chocolates has won an award and only one other product from Kerala has won a bronze this year from India.
Chitram's Moringa & Lemon White chocolate won a bronze in White Chocolate with Infusions category while five other products from Chitram went till the finals. Last year Chitra'm won this award under two categories—Dark Chocolate with alternate natural sugar and Milk Chocolate with flavour infusion. Palm Sugar Dark Chocolate and Mango Lassi Milk Chocolate after winning bronze medals were also recommended by the grand jury to participate in the world chocolate competition. Mango Lassi Milk Chocolate won bronze in the World chocolate competition last year in November.
Moringa & Lemon white chocolate won bronze competing with over 900 products registered from more than 130 companies from all around the Asia-Pacific region, including entries from Australia, China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and more.
Arun Viswanathan who runs Infusions Cafe at Ramnagar, launched Chitram Craft Chocolates in May 2018. "I started this venture in memory of my mother Chitra who passed away before two years. I wanted this brand to be very special and that is why we chose not to use any artificial stabilising agents. Chitram started with six varieties and now has twenty different chocolates. Though five of our chocolates reached finals Moringa & Lemon getting a bronze, was a bit of surprise. A chocolate with a native flavour winning this makes it more special" stated Arun.
Arun further added, "We have been experimenting moringa leaves for about a year to get the right mix and finally we got it right only recently. Now its a huge hit. Moringa is the healthy ingredient and lemon gives a flavour most of us like and that gave a perfect chocolate. This was made with low glycemic sugar to maintain the color of white chocolate. We normally use country sugar and palm sugar to prepare our chocolates."
Arun has plans for an organic expansion where in he is looking for partner stores, cafes or restaurants to stock his chocolates and there by reaching out to customers across many cities.