IN the circles she moves around in, the beautiful and leggy Zeeba Mitha Kohli is known as the Chocolate Lady. That's not a delicious reference to her tanned complexion and auburn hair: Zeba is a hardcore chocolatier. Swiss-trained, and in a Cordon Bleu confectionery school. She is the managing director of Good Housekeeping, a group of companies dealing in all kinds of things, from furniture and cold storages to wedding halls and a restaurant.

But known best for its fine range of Fantasie Chocolates and distribution of Switzerland�s Lindt and Belgium�s Cote d�Or chocolates. Good Housekeeping has been manufacturing and marketing these chocolates for 55 years, yes, and competing with big daddy Cadburys!

Zeba's been involved with chocolates since she was a child who used to wander into her grandfather's office at Liberty Cinema building and watch the business developing. When her mother took control, Zeba began to help out, and spent all her hours before and after college in the business. "I used to stand in for a peon, sometimes be a sales girl, before I went abroad to learn about chocolate making," she explains. Abroad was Switzerland, the world's best chocolate-making country.

"I chose a Cordon Bleu confectionery that suited my time," says Zeba, "because, by then, I was working with all the other companies in Good Housekeeping at every level." And she is still learning about chocolate, Zeba says. Every year, she goes to Switzerland or Singapore where people she studied with have confectioneries and patisseries. There, Zeba will work as an apprentice. "I go to study the latest trends in chocolate-making and apply my knowledge to Fantasie Chocolates."

She believes Indian chocolate is equivalent to all the foreign brands and, therefore, wants to make Fantasie a one-stop chocolate shop. "I want to offer the Indian customer one bite of Swiss, one bite of Belgian, and one bite of Indian chocolate and then watch his face," she says. "I know they all won't be the same, and maybe the customer will put me in my place, but I dare anybody to say our pralines are not world class!"

Fantasie Chocolates does not make chocolate - from cocoa bean to slab. It sources the chocolate from companies that manufacture it to Fantasie's recipe specifications. "Then we temper it, change the chocolate, and manufacture praline. Like most chocolate-making companies in the world," Zeba explains.

"All the chocolate stores you see in Europe, the patisseries, confectioneries, they buy the chocolate and then create their own recipes. And they excel at making something for which they become famous." Fantasie's signature line is praline. "Our Divine Mint and Mocca Mousse are fabulous, our Hazelnut Centre is outstanding, and the Marzipan - magnificent," she says proudly.

Although Fantasie does not make chocolate, Zeba knows how to do so "from start to end". She's a hands-on chocolatier. When Fantasie is developing a new product, she goes to the factory at Andheri and puts her hand to the mould. And she has a very finely tuned sense of taste for chocolate. "Indians used to only eat a very sweet chocolate.

But now, many people prefer the bitter and bitter-sweet dark product. Indians are slowly developing a taste for gourmet chocolates. They travel abroad, samples various chocolates, and come away knowing that good chocolate is not necessarily sweet."

She describes chocolate with a sensuous passion: "Chocolate has to be warm and smooth. It has to melt on the tongue. It should be a full-bodied flavour, with just a hint of sweetness." She has a lot of it every day. "I have to, you know, the various production units bring me samples. Or I'm changing recipes. My average intake would be, hmmmn, 100 grams. That's a lot of chocolate! But when I'm in the mood, I sit with my husband Rajesh and just wallop a pile!"

Zeba is a careful mother, however, and will not let her two adorable daughters, Carina and Sophia, be spoiled rotten on chocolates. "I allow them white chocolate. It is only milk, cocoa butter and sugar. It doesn't have the brown cocoa bean component.But when they come to Fantasie Chocolates with all their school friends... I let them dip into the chocolate moulds and have a ball!"