Serendib Chocolate · Hansa Ceylon
Hansa CeylonCOFFEE · CHOCOLATE · FARM · RAGALA

Serendib Chocolate

It's time for real chocolate.

Get to know the true taste of Sri Lankan chocolate. Our cacao is fermented, dried, roasted and made into chocolate by us in Ragala, so every step from bean to bar happens on the island.

Serendib is our chocolate brand, built on the same forest-garden model as our coffee. We buy cacao from Sri Lankan smallholders, and Lawrence brings the same farmer training in fermentation and drying to cacao growers that he spent years giving coffee farmers.

Checking ripening cacao pods on the treeFermented cacao beans drying on racks

Ripe pods are opened and the beans fermented, then dried slowly on racks before roasting. Good fermentation and drying are where the flavour starts, which is why we train growers in both.

Roasted, then ground on stone

Once dry, the beans are roasted, then ground the old way on a miris gala, the traditional Sri Lankan grinding stone found in kitchens across the island.

Pushpa and Kumari pouring cacao beans into the roasting machine
Pushpa and Kumari loading cacao into the roaster
Roasted cacao on a traditional miris gala grinding stone
Our miris gala. As Romayne says, "My grandmother's miris gala is still working out!"
Serendib 70% bar with coconut and broken chocolate pieces
Our 70% bar, sweetened with coconut palm sugar

Two bars for the purists

100% darkJust cacao beans, roasted and turned into a bar. Nothing added. Made for cooking, baking and serious dark chocolate lovers.
70% dark70% cacao and 30% coconut palm sugar. Our best seller, and vegan.

Want something in between? Ask us for your own percentage of cacao.

What we make

70% with coconut sugar 100% cacao Cocoa nibs Chocolate tea

Cocoa nibs

Nibs are the crunchy centres of roasted cacao beans, cracked into pieces. Stir them into baking, sprinkle them on breakfast bowls, or turn them into sauces and sweets.

Why coconut sugar

Our best seller is pure Sri Lankan cacao with 30% coconut palm sugar, bought from small farmers. Coconut sugar has a warm, caramel-like flavour of its own, so it rounds off the bitterness of dark cacao instead of just making it sweet. It is lightly processed and keeps traces of minerals that white sugar loses, and the bar is vegan.

Nothing wasted

Roasted cacao shells, with a small pile ground for teaA pack of Serendib 100% cacao tea

When we roast and crack cacao beans, the papery shells come away from the nibs. Instead of throwing them out, we roast and grind them into a loose tea that smells unmistakably of chocolate. It brews light and aromatic in five to seven minutes, with no sugar or gluten.

A pile of fermented and dried Sri Lankan cacao beans
Fermented, dried Sri Lankan cacao, ready to roast

For kitchens and brands

Bakers, hotels and cafés buy our 100% cacao and 70% chocolate in 500g and 1kg packs, and we make unbranded bulk dark chocolate for private label. We can also make a bar at the cacao percentage you choose. Order on the wholesale counter or message us on WhatsApp.