Chocolate Haven

It is a chocolate factory where you can see the various processes of chocolate-making and chocolatiering. It is also a unique celebration of chocolate, actually the finest craft chocolate. The recently opened Manam in Banjara Hills of Hyderabad is where every chocolate-lover in the city and soon, the country, is going to be headed to, given the array of craft-chocolate offerings. There are cookies, cakes, fudge, brownies, hot and cold chocolate drinks, chocolate-barks, softies...the list of interpretations and creative options goes on and on. We all loved the coconut and curry-leaf interpretation, the one with chakkarakeli banana flavour among the hundreds on offer. As for the signature-tablet collection, and the blends, fusions and infusions, etc., these are everything the chocoholic dreams of.

Manam Chocolate Karkhana is also an educational centre given how you can see and understand the various stages that the raw cacao-beans pass through before it becomes the scrumptious confection everybody loves. The cacao beans go through roasting, winnowing, grinding, refining, conching, tempering and moulding to be transformed into amazingly tempting confections in a vast variety. It is a truly immersive experience that this around-10,000 sq ft of space gives. The Manam Classroom offers digital classes and workshops on request to groups of students or interested persons.

There is also a Chocolate Lab where you can customise your own chocolate tablets. Below is an all-day dining cafe, the Manam Cafe, with, appropriately, a cacao tree in the centre. Founded by Chaitanya Muppala, a young entrepreneur and visionary, Manam Chocolate is a pioneer in the field of cacao-pod to bean to chocolate confections. This is because they have taken charge of the entire process. “We are farmers, fermenters, chocolate makers and chocolatiers,” explains Chaitanya. Manam is not just chocolate but Craft Chocolate which employs the highest standards of manufacturing ensuring purity and high quality. Manam owner Chaitanya adds: “We have a sister company Distinct Origins where it all begins. Through this, we have partnered with a network of around 100 farmers who cultivate around 1,500 acres of cacao farms in the West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh. The Distinct Origins Cacao Fermentery in Tadikalapudi employs high-grade technology and quality-control in the drying and fermentation processes. The chocolate tablets give you traceability--you can tell from which farm the cacao originated before it was transformed into the tablet you hold in your hand.

Chaitanya is India’s first and only Level 3 Certified Chocolate Taster, a certification given by the International Institute of Cacao and Chocolate Tasting. He says he hopes to make the indigenous brand Manam a prestigious part of the world chocolate map and make a global mark with his craft-chocolates. And he is getting there, soon enough. Manam Chocolate was a winner at the recent 2023 Asia-Pacific Bean to Bar and Craft Chocolatier Competition.