We have been using the Grand Cru Chakra couvertures since mid-September 2022 for almost all our products that contain chocolate. Company owner Cristina de Perregaux has thus fulfilled a long-cherished dream, and head chocolatier Ivo Jud emphasises: “Being able to help design a couverture from scratch is a unique experience in the professional life of a chocolatier. We can now design our pralines, truffles, and other chocolate specialities even more individually. Especially in the area of milk couverture, the leap is enormous.” The fact that the Grand Cru Chakra couvertures do not contain soya lecithin was a particular challenge for Ivo Jud: “Lecithin ensures that the melted chocolate flows well; if it is missing, it thickens more easily and is even more sensitive in terms of the temperatures at which it can be worked with. This is especially true for milk couverture, as the milk powder already makes the mass more viscous”.The challenges of the craft are not a burden for the head chocolatier. On the contrary they are “the salt in the soup” in his work, as he is one of the few craftsmen who still produces highly sensitive or extremely labour-intensive products such as “Kirschstängeli” or “Bâtonnets au Kirsch” and leafy nougat in the traditional way. To form the Bâtonnets de Kirsch wheat starch is first sieved into a hollow frame and smoothed out. Using moulds, depressions are then stamped into the dry powder. In the meantime, sugar and water are heated to exactly 112 degrees to make sugar syrup. After pouring the kirsch into the syrup, this mixture is streamed through a filling funnel into the depressions made with the moulds. The sensitive constructs are gently dusted with more wheat starch before they are allowed to rest and crystallise for several hours. The art of finding the right ratio of Kirsch and syrup lies in years of practice. After the resting time, the starch is carefully brushed off and the chocolatier can double-coat the Bâtonnet de Kirsch with Grand Cru Chakra Noir 70% 66h. Finally, he carefully turns the Bâtonnets in cocoa powder and places them one by one in the designated segments of the packaging. The production of the leafy nougat for the praline Lotti’s Best, named after Cristina de Perregaux aunt, the former owner Lotti Honold, is similarly complex. Nougat is folded by hand like puff pastry. Fleur de sel and grated tonka beans are added to the layers before coating the creation with Grand Cru Chakra Noir 70% 66h and Grand Cru Chakra Lait 40% 36h.
Carlos Pozo, the president of the Kallari cooperative, travelled to Switzerland in the summer of 2022 – about one and a half years after the start of the Chakra project – to visit the manufactory at the Honold headquarters in Küsnacht with representatives of Felchlin. The visitor from South America took home a selection of Honold products including Lotti’s Best and was very pleased about the appreciation that Kallari cocoa receives in faraway Switzerland. Seeing how the chocolate products made from the cocoa beans from the Kallari Cooperative are appreciated by our clients, encourages the members of the Kallari Cooperative in their philosophy and work. Thanks to partners like Felchlin and Honold, who are willing to pay fair prices for excellent quality, the Kichwa community is able to maintain its traditional way of life and produce cocoa that actually deserves the often-used term “sustainable”.
