Mirzam Chocolate Guide: Dubai Bean-to-Bar on the Spice Route

Mirzam is a chocolate maker in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and its story starts with a star. The company says its name comes from the Mirzam star, translated from Arabic as "the herald" or "the announcer," because the star signaled the rise of Sirius and the blossoming of ripe dates. The maker, which marks 2016 as the year its chocolate making began, now roasts, grinds and molds its bars in a factory in Dubai and flavors many of them with the foods of the region: dates, cardamom, coffee, honey and Emirati desserts. Below: who the maker is, where its cacao comes from, and what each regional flavor is, explained for someone tasting it for the first time.

A few terms first. Cacao is the tree, its pods and the seeds inside them, called beans; chocolate is made from those beans. Bean-to-bar means the company making the chocolate starts with the beans themselves, rather than melting finished chocolate bought from a large supplier. The percentage on a bar is the share of its weight that comes from the cacao bean (the ground bean plus any added cocoa butter); the rest is mostly sugar, and in milk chocolate, milk. White chocolate uses only the fat of the bean, cocoa butter, with sugar and milk; United States food rules require at least 20 percent cocoa butter (called cacao fat) and at least 14 percent milk solids. The Spice Route is the name for the old trade routes that carried spices between distant lands. Mirzam describes them as routes that "once connected ports, cultures and communities."

A chocolate maker that tells stories

Mirzam says it was "born from a desire to bring storytelling into chocolate," and the stories it tells are the stories of the Spice Route. Its tenth-anniversary page puts the start of its chocolate making in Dubai in 2016 and describes the brand as inspired by that ancient trade, sourcing cacao from its places of origin and making each bar from bean to chocolate in its own factory. From 19 September to 19 October 2026 the company is marking ten years with a month of events, workshops, performances and cultural gatherings at its home in Al Quoz, a district of Dubai.

Al Quoz is home to the company's factory and store. Mirzam also lists a café at Qasr Al Hosn in Abu Dhabi, a store at Al Khawaneej Walk in Dubai and a café at a hotel in Al Satwa. The wrappers are part of the storytelling: the company says local and regional artists illustrate them. The band on its Emirati honeycomb box, for example, features artwork by Saeed Al Madani inspired by the Emirates Mars Mission and its Hope spacecraft.

Where the beans come from

A chocolate maker in Dubai has to bring its beans in. Mirzam says it sources from countries along the historic Spice Route, and it names six countries for its cocoa beans: Tanzania, India, Vietnam, Madagascar, Ghana and Papua New Guinea. Its origin page names some of the farms behind them:

  • Madagascar: the Bejofo Estate in the Sambirano Valley, led by Bertil Akesson, which the maker says has grown organic cacao since the early 1900s.
  • Tanzania: Kokoa Kamili in the Kilombero Valley, founded by Brian LoBue and Simran Bindra, which works with smallholder farmers in the village of Mbingu.
  • India: Regal Plantation in the Anamalai Hills of Tamil Nadu, run by Harish Manoj Kumar and Karthi Palanisamy, where the cacao is grown organically among coconut palms.

The maker says each origin brings its own tasting notes, such as citrus brightness, deep roasted coffee tones or delicate floral aromas, and it has made plain single-origin bars from Tanzania and India alongside the flavored ones. A single-origin bar uses beans from one place, so the taste of that place comes through. The single-origin chocolate tasting guide explains how to taste for it.

From pod to bar

Mirzam lays out its process in nine steps. Farmers hand-pick ripe pods. The seeds are taken out and left for several days in wooden crates, covered with banana leaves or kept in shade, so the sweet white pulp around them breaks down; this is fermentation, and it is where much of chocolate's flavor begins (the cacao fermentation guide follows a box day by day). The beans are then dried in the sun; the maker notes that in Papua New Guinea, where there is less sunshine, the beans are dried over smoke instead.

In Dubai the beans are roasted with cool air flowing gently through the roaster, which the company says protects the delicate cocoa butter. They are cracked and winnowed, meaning the papery husk is blown away from the broken pieces of bean, called nibs. Stone grinders turn the nibs into a paste, and hours of conching, a long stirring and rubbing of the warm chocolate, give it a silky texture. The chocolate is then tempered, cooled under control so the cocoa butter sets in an even pattern that gives a glossy bar with a clean snap, and poured into molds, with each recipe's ingredients added at this stage. The bean-to-bar process guide covers each of those steps in more depth.

The flavors, one by one

Each bar below starts from one food of the region or the route. Here is what that food is, and what the maker puts in the bar.

Dates

A date is the sweet fruit of the date palm. Mirzam's Dates & Fennel bar uses Khalas dates, which the newspaper Khaleej Times described in 2015 as one of the UAE's most loved dates and a common commercial variety grown in various parts of the country. Khalas dates are light amber while unripe, turn yellow when half ripe and brown when fully ripe, ripening from July and fully ripe by mid-August. That year, 180 farmers entered the competition for the best Khalas dates at the Liwa Dates Festival, held in the Al Gharbia desert.

62% Dark Chocolate with Dates & Fennel (shop Mirzam Dates & Fennel). The maker describes a paste of dates grown in the Liwa oasis in the UAE and freshly ground fennel, one of the natural spices the maker uses for flavor, filling a delicate chocolate bar shell. The ingredient line lists cocoa beans, unrefined cane sugar, cocoa butter, Khalas dates, date syrup and salt. The bar won silver awards at both the Academy of Chocolate and the International Chocolate Awards in 2017, according to the maker.

Coffee and cardamom

Cardamom is a flavoring that comes from the plant Elettaria cardamomum. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, places that plant in the Zingiberaceae, the same botanical family as ginger, and gives its native range as southwestern India. Across the Middle East, Mirzam explains, families make and grind their own signature coffee blends and serve guests a spiced version called Gahwa; the maker adds that Mocha, in Yemen, was for a long time the world's busiest port for coffee.

62% Dark Chocolate with Cardamom & Coffee is the bar built on that cup: single-origin dark chocolate infused with cardamom and freshly roasted coffee. Its ingredients are cocoa beans, unrefined cane sugar, cocoa butter, Arabica coffee beans and cardamom.

Alphonso mango

The Alphonso is a mango variety from the Indian state of Maharashtra. In India the name is a registered geographical indication, a legal label that ties a product's name to the place it comes from. India's Geographical Indications Registry lists "Alphonso" as registered for the state of Maharashtra, on an application from the Director of Research at Dr. Balasaheb Sawant Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth in Dapoli, with certificate 324 dated 3 October 2018.

Alphonso Mango White Chocolate (shop Mirzam Alphonso Mango). Mirzam notes that the Alphonso is known as "the king of mangoes," says it ripens in the heart of the monsoon season, and says the bar is made with hundreds of Indian Alphonso mangoes. The ingredients are cocoa butter, cane sugar, Alphonso mango and skimmed milk powder. The same fruit appears in a milk bar: 52% Milk Chocolate with Alphonso Mango, Coconut & Roasted Rice (shop Mirzam Mango, Coconut & Roasted Rice), an Indian single-origin milk chocolate with mango, coconut and roasted rice, according to its product page.

Loqaimat

Loqaimat (also spelled luqaimat) are traditional Emirati deep-fried dumplings drizzled with date syrup, according to the bar's product page; the maker describes them as crispy on the outside, soft inside, and found in homes and souks (markets) across the region. Date syrup is a thick, dark syrup made from dates.

Loqaimat 45% Milk Chocolate (shop Mirzam Loqaimat). Mirzam calls loqaimat a beloved Emirati dessert and reimagines it in chocolate with puffed quinoa caramelized with date syrup, blending airy crunch with deep caramel notes. The puffed quinoa stands in for the fried dough. The ingredients are cocoa beans, cocoa butter, unrefined cane sugar, skimmed milk powder, quinoa and date syrup.

Khabeesa

Khabeesa is a traditional Emirati dessert based on semolina, a coarse flour milled from wheat, according to the bar's product page.

Khabeesa 62% Dark Chocolate (shop Mirzam Khabeesa). Into the dark chocolate go finely chopped dates, a delicate blend of cardamom and cinnamon, and crumbled biscuits baked in-house, which the maker says echo the semolina-like texture of the original recipe. The ingredient line lists cocoa beans, cocoa butter, unrefined cane sugar, dates, cardamom and crackers made with wheat flour, brown sugar, butter, honey, cinnamon and salt, so this bar contains wheat and milk.

Emirati honeycomb

Honeycomb here means a candy made with honey and baking soda, not the wax comb bees build: light and airy, it shatters with a crunch when bitten, according to its product page. Emirati Honeycomb in 62% Dark Chocolate (shop Mirzam Honeycomb) uses freshly produced Emirati honey, cracked into chunks and coated in the maker's single-origin 62% dark chocolate. The listed ingredients are cocoa beans, unrefined cane sugar, cocoa butter, Emirati honey, bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) and sunflower lecithin, an emulsifier (an ingredient that helps fat and other ingredients blend evenly). The honey guide covers honey itself.

How to taste them

Taste from the plainest bar to the most layered, so each flavor has room. Start with the Alphonso Mango white chocolate, which has no cocoa solids beyond the butter and lets the fruit lead. Move to the Loqaimat milk chocolate and notice the crunch and the date syrup's caramel depth. Then the Dates & Fennel dark bar: let a piece melt and notice how the fennel sits against the date. Finish with the Khabeesa and the Honeycomb, the two with the most going on. Water between bars helps. Let each piece melt on the tongue rather than chewing it at once.

Mirzam advises keeping its bars in a cool, dry place, away from sunlight, humidity and strong odors. The chocolate bloom and storage guide explains why. The maker also notes that its facility is peanut-free while some recipes contain nuts, and its product pages say the bars are made in an environment where dairy, gluten and nuts are present, so anyone with an allergy should read each bar's ingredient line.

Mirzam is not the only maker turning a home cuisine into chocolate. Singapore's Fossa does the same with hawker dishes and tea, covered in the Fossa chocolate guide, and more makers are gathered in the craft chocolate guide.

The old route, run backward

A Mirzam bar points in two directions at once. The beans travel in from Tanzania, Madagascar, India and Papua New Guinea, the way goods once moved along the Spice Route, and the flavors waiting for them in Dubai are the region's own: the Khalas date, the Gahwa cup, the loqaimat at a family table. The beans are imported. The story is local, and the company that tells it is named for the star that signaled the ripening of dates. Explore the Mirzam collection.

The shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and products ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com.

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