Sri Lankan Chocolate (And Coffee)
Hansa chocolate. This chunk cost Rs. 240.
Many awesome things have come to South America to Sri Lanka – chili, chocolate – via the Portugeuse, among others. Other things were brought, in commercial form, by the British, namely coffee and tea. Chili and tea have taken solid root here, but chocolate and coffee have kinda not. Not entirely. While you can get a spicy meal and plain tea anywhere, locally grown coffee and chocolate is hard to find.
One place/brand is Hansa. I’ve had Hansa coffee at home and I find it very difficult to make and far inferior to Nescafe. That said, in terms of coffee shops, I much prefer Hansa (Sinhala) because it’s authentic, not pretentious and – most important of all – cheap. The idea that coffee needs to be $5 is a bit crazy, unless it’s been excreted by some exotic animal. The idea that coffee should be that price in Sri Lanka is… I’ve already said crazy, it’s just madness. I don’t enjoy the experience of meeting at, say Coffee Bean or even Coco Veranda, simply because it’s so expensive and so faux homey.
Plus I don’t really like coffee. So if I’m grabbing a cup of something I’m not that into, I’d rather do it at Hansa, where they brew local coffee decently and cheaply. Anyways.
We dropped by yesterday and the coffee shop now has chocolate. As in, they have cacao beans, which I tried (bitter, unpleasant) which they roast and mash into chocolate slabs which are then broken into sellable pieces. So they have these saran wrapped shards of chocolate for sale, 70% cacao, 30% brown sugar. I don’t like chocolate either, but I actually like these. Perhaps it’s the experience, knowing that it comes from a plant, knowing it comes from somewhere. I somehow have higher standards for commercial products (like a restaurant meal) than for things where I know the people and process (a home-cooked meal).
Hence, I enjoyed the chocolate, though objectively you could say it’s a bit grainy and has a bitter aftertaste. I still like it. We gave it to other people and they didn’t seem to like it much at all, much to my surprise. I tried some Kandos cooking chocolate (also from Sri Lankan cacao) and found it less aftertastey, but still so commercial that it changed my standards and then failed them.
Anyways, Savan ‘broke’ this story on YAMU earlier. Check it out, there’s some more photos there.
Not to quote Ice Cube, but the Sri Lankan police are hardly beloved. A 
I just gave a talk at the University Of Sri Jayawardenapura along with Reeza Zarook of Anything.lk and Rohan Jayaweera of Google. These are my notes: Devin Jayasundara asked me for a subject for this talk and I told him Internet property. But I talked to my fiancé Shru and she had a better idea. Startups aren’t about creating property at all, not really. They’re about creating territory, about creating land.
I haven’t been blogging much, I know. It’s partly because we’ve been doing a lot of work on YAMU, especially shipping 1.0.1 of the Android app today. It’s on the 
I met an old-timer who said they used to drop acid and sleep atop Sigiriya, but the place has taken on a more commercial and quasi-spiritual role now. It was built by a king as a sort of retreat and used as a monastery. Now it’s a prime tourist and cultural destination. Hence it’s a bit odd to see a Japanese beer commercial shot up there. There’s a bunch of people eating, um, deep fried cream filled coconuts and then drinking some bracing beer. I hear the whole thing cost Rs. 25,000 (I’m presuming they used stock images).
Thanks Indi! I shall have to go check this place out now ;)
Nescafe is instant coffee. How can you compare it to regular Hansa coffee? For me, instant is always the last choice, or the one before the last — after Expo and Island coffee. Hansa coffee’s pretty damn good for the price. Like any regular European coffee brand. Lavazza (what you get at Barrista’s) is bloody expensive (like 4 times Hansa), but much better. But that’s a gourmet brand, I think.
i think for most people in sl to whom coffee is synonymous with nescafe, that’s their bar. i have a friend who professes to be a die hard coffee lover, but will only drink nescafe. go figure.
@indi – the reason you might be finding it hard to make is because you have to brew real coffee, unlike the instant stuff where you can just add hot water and drink.
My favorite bit : “I don’t enjoy the experience of meeting at, say Coffee Bean or even Coco Veranda, simply because it’s so expensive and so faux homey”
My favorite favorite bit : “Plus I don’t really like coffee. So if I’m grabbing a cup of something I’m not that into, I’d rather do it at Hansa, where they brew local coffee decently and cheaply. Anyways.”
<3
Chocolate’s an acquired taste. Most people like it, but in completely varied forms with little crossover.
I remember bringing my dad a Hershey’s bar back from the US years ago. He’d always wanted to try some following it being referenced in a film. The French Connection, I think. Anyway, he hated it. Absolutely hated it. But he did (at that time) eat Cadbury’s chocolate made in the UK. Some people don’t like cheap mass-produced chocolate made in the UK, seemingly because it usually is made with a mix of vegetable oil fats (palm oil) and dairy fats, rather than just the latter. Most people seem to like it a lot over time.
I’ll eat Cadbury’s and Rowntrees (KitKat, Smarties etc, bought years ago by Nestle) occasionally, but while it satisfies the tastebuds, it doesn’t tantalise them. Decent chocolate good demands quality cocoa beans in a high concentration (75%+), the beans must be carefully selected, roasted, ground to a paste, stirred with sugar and vanilla for many hours, tempered (to stop the cocoa butter separating and for texture) and then set (sometimes with additions such as chilli, nuts or other flavourings). It’s ok to add milk fat, but wouldn’t be acceptable for purists. I think the chocolate here in Sri Lanka and in the US has emulsifiers or something to stop it melting in warm climates.
They definitely don’t get the tempering right in Sri Lankan brands. Whatever the reason, I find local chocolate here almost inedible, but my friends who grew up on it love the stuff. The crumbly chocolate in the picture above definitely looks like it hasn’t been tempered, but it might just be the ingredients.
Something I learned from Stephen Fry, however (Indi, you really should know who he is), is that chocolate should not be merely ‘eaten’, it should be taken in small quantities and allowed to melt on the tongue before swallowing. Buy some good chocolate (Swiss-type), first just eat a bit, then try the melting method. There’s quite a difference in taste. Doesn’t work with Kandos.
Tempering must be the process where it’s heated to a specific temperature, which gives it a certain spiny texture that’s supposed to hit the tastebuds just the right way.
Why does the same brand that comes from the UK or Europe taste much better than the product sold here, which is usually fromIndia or the far east? So unfair!
Tempering is a process of heating to achieve an overall hardness, be it chocolate or glass — nothing to do with taste. Indian chocolate used to be inferior to SL’s at one time, and still isn’t as good as the west’s.
Or steel? I thought I’d read something about the micro texture of chocolate contributing to taste, and thought processing methods were the main reason for the difference in taste. Looks like it’s more the quality of the ingredients.
Yes, steel too, certain types of ceramic, etc. I don’t think tempering affects texture, just consistency.
lindt is the best “mass produced” chocolate IMO.
Harischandra Coffee is really good too and quite consistent. Good for brewing Sri Lankan style, i.e. add coffee powder and bring to boil. Good for cold brew coffee too. Cold brew is add coffee powder to water and leave overnight and microwave to heat it.
yep thats my favourite too. Never liked any other. I dont knw why they dont develop their brand. their coffee is good.
I hate Harischandra. Maybe it’s how it’s made here but it seems to be mostly chicory.
Second that.
Thanks for this. I am definitely going to visit this place this week. Been looking for some proper chocolate this is now 30% cocoa and 70% sugar.
*that is not 30%* pardon the typos.