While browsing through her Instagram account one night last year, 31-year-old Sheetal Saxena came across a visual of something peculiar being roasted inside a coffee machine. One look and she knew those were not coffee beans. Intrigued, she showed it to her husband, Nishant Kumar Sinha (35).
Finding him equally clueless, she googled and found that those seeds were cacao, a component that forms the base for chocolates. A little more research about cacao led to the idea of starting their artisanal chocolate brand - Colocal. And this October, the couple launched its flagship casual café dining-cum-chocolate factory at Dhan Mill in Chhatarpur.
"Colocal is a sustainable, zero waste, passion-driven brand. Our objective is to educate people about chocolate and create a 'bean to bar' market so they can explore the whole process and technique of making chocolates.We want to redefine chocolate indulgence experience," says Sheetal.
What helped the duo bring this concept to life was Nishant's experience in the coffee industry. The graduate from Jodhpur’s Institute of Hotel Management is also a professional coffee roaster, who started his career at Café Coffee Day. That his family had been in the catering business for three generations helped too.
"Nishant had set up the Roastery Coffee House in Hyderabad (2017) and Kolkata (2019). When we got married in 2018, he was busy building the brand. I was working with the ICICI Bank back then, but I had always dreamt of having a café of my own. That Instagram incident just made it happen," says Sheetal.
In the year-and-a-half of research before Colocal was formed, Sheetal lived with the locals in Kerala to understand how cacao is grown, sourced and processed to make chocolate. She also travelled to Milan to learn chocolate-making techniques.
“We did so much research because we wanted only pure chocolate to be the star,” says Nishant, adding that they then started making craft chocolates. Naysayers tried to discourage them saying the concept required a definitive skill set and formal knowledge to be able to understand it, but it didn’t deter them from their path. “All it takes is sheer passion and dedication,” he says.
Talking about sharing responsibilities at the workplace, Sheetal says it is difficult to separate work and personal life. "Since we both are working in the same field, one or the other work-related issue invariably crops up every day in our personal space. But we are very clear that we have to take a weekly off and spend quality time with each other," he said.
What also helps, quips Nishant, is that they do a lot of work-related travel together. "So, we get ample time with each other. Plus, the lockdown gave us a lot of personal time together. We cooked for each other, which was great fun."
However, at work the couple ensures that they don’t enter each other’s professional space. "Her expertise is chocolates while mine lies in running the café, and we make sure not to cross our lines," informs Nishant, but is quick to add: "She is a perfectionist, her passion for perfection irritates me a little, at times. But I love that she finds time for me and the family even when she is neck-deep in work."