I met Britta Kürzi, owner of Kürzi Kakao, at a cozy soon-to-be Cafe in Zürich Wiedikon. Not just any cafe, but one that she co-owns with Bianca Legorreta, the talent behind White Rabbit Bakery. Together they will open the doors of Moon Cafe in September of 2021, offering visitors a delightful combination of delicious chocolate and mouth-watering baked goods. And of course a cup of coffee.
As part of my postpartum basket I wanted to encourage new parents to take time to reconnect with each other. When there’s a new baby in the house it’s often hard to have a full, uninterrupted conversation with each other and “date night” can feel illusive. With this in mind, I included a candle and a bar of chocolate in the basket. The attached card with a postpartum tip encourages parents to find a time when the baby is sleeping or on a walk with grandma to sit down together, light the candle, enjoy the chocolate, and reconnect.
Obviously I had to test all of the products in the basket myself before deciding whether they made the cut. That included the chocolate. (Tough job, but somebody had to do it!)
I ordered a few possibilities from Kürzi Kakao without revealing my reasoning. To my surprise, Britta included a few extra bits of chocolate, asking whether I would send her feedback. Again, it was tough, but I stepped up to the plate (of chocolate…). My mom, my husband and I all had a little chocolate taste test and sent Britta our feedback. I loved the chocolate and told her I’d like to include it in my postpartum basket for new moms. She was immediately on board with the idea and we set up a time to meet in person to discuss it.
When you’re talking with Britta it doesn’t take long to see that she is crazy passionate about chocolate. Lots of people are chocolate fans, of course, but she knows the ins and outs of how the chocolate is harvested, preserved and tempered. She talks about the DNA of a cocoa bean and attending what she calls “chocolate nerd conferences”.
She clearly pours all of this knowledge and passion in to her business. She puts a lot of thought into every step of the process. She carefully picks where the beans come from, whether those people are paid fairly and how they handle the cocoa from the time it leaves the plant to the time it lands in Britta’s chocolate factory. She has seen this process firsthand during her time in the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. She is deliberate about the way she presents her chocolate - the packaging is eco friendly and even has instructions inside the lid on how to do an at-home chocolate tasting.
With such good taste, personally, corporately, globally, economically, not to mention literally! How could a slow, melt-in-your-mouth morsel of Kürzi Kakao not totally complete your inter-nappy date night interlude?
