Zotter chocolates for angels and lumpen

The cacao tree is originally called Theobroma - food for the gods. Today, chocolate is mainly associated with vice and sweetness in taste. It is also a divine and angelic food, but would it be more suited to the underworld of hell? Opinions are divided, which is why the chocolate house Zotter created two lines within a few years of starting production: chocolate for angels and chocolate for lumpen. Which was for whom was clearly written on the wrappers, which were a real work of design and remain so today. Many people do not throw them away, but save them, and it is easy to see where they belong: among the creatures with wings or with flowers?

White wings, black tail

Why do we associate both the brightest ethereal beings and the fallen souls with chocolate? Andreas H. Gratze, the designer and artist who elevated Zotter to one of the most recognisable chocolate brands with his imaginative graphic designs, was not the first to think of this. The angelic and demonic links are much older and known in many cultures. In many places, the taste of chocolate is said to be like angels dancing on your tongue. And cakes that contain so much cocoa that they are completely dark brown or almost black are called devil''s cakes.

Does chocolate tempt us to sin and sin when it comes to healthy eating, or can it help us to look after our health, the environment and our fellow man?

So is chocolate for the hard-working or for the naughty? Is its consumption a depraved indulgence, a pleasure that is considered a sin? Or is it a dish with which angels are sweetened? Apparently, the Zotter chocolatiers could not decide, so they made chocolates for both. We think about the angelic and demonic sides a little differently ...

Dietary sins

You''ve probably heard the modern saying circulating on social media, which goes something like this: Chocolate in heaven has no calories and is served as a main course. Impossible. There is no such thing as calorie-free chocolate, and there never will be. Cocoa itself is rich in nutrients, including cocoa butter, so chocolate is calorie-dense anyway. There is no significant difference in calories between milk chocolate and dark chocolate. Of course, there is a big difference in what is the source of the calories. And here we have our first surprise: in dark chocolate, the calories come from the cocoa content, whereas in milk chocolate they come mostly from sugar and added fats (palm and other oils are also found in these). The healthiest thing in chocolate is, of course, cocoa (and cocoa butter), so it is the dark version that leads to heaven. The darker the chocolate, the less you sin when it comes to healthy eating.

Have you heard that sugar is as harmful as alcohol and drugs? That we can be addicted to it? It has been proven that sugar is harder for women to resist. How convenient, isn''t it? Not only are women sinners the ones who usually take care of the family shopping and raise the children, but they are also the ones who are most concerned with their physical appearance. Their powerlessness to resist chocolate borders on a spell! Yet it is not so. The difference between good and bad choices, between heaven and hell, lies in quality. High-quality chocolates, rich in cocoa, offer pleasure without leading to sin. Chocolates high in sugar, on the other hand, are merely addictive, spoil our teeth and our physique, do not offer a full taste and leave a void behind. Chocolates that bear the blessing of heaven are therefore black and of good quality. Those that are given to us by the villains below are chocolates that are low in cocoa and of poor quality.

Zotter on the bright side

When Zotter chocolates were created for angels and lumpen, Josef Zotter probably thought of naming them both more in a marketing sense than not. But today, his imaginative flavours inside the most velvety bars of chocolate are a few steps closer to the afterlife up there. Why? Because with Zotter chocolates, you''re stepping in the right direction and enjoying chocolate that doesn''t just taste good, but also has a "philosophy". All Zotter chocolates use fair trade ingredients, preventing the exploitation of workers and ensuring fair pay for farmers. All the chocolates are organic, which is both a concern for human health and for the environment. Zotter helps poverty alleviation programmes in Nicaragua, promotes cocoa farming (instead of cocaine) in Colombia, plants a tree in Laos for every chocolate bar sold, provides school lunches for Burmese refugee children in Thailand, etc. So surely their chocolates are offered with the intention of doing something good while indulging our senses. That is why Zotter chocolates are angelic or heavenly and you cannot sin with them.