Nyanga Fatou Mende makes some of the most distinctive and irresistible chocolate in the UK, without question. A Ghanaian-born Briton with a ready smile and an extraordinary knowledge of the secrets of cacao, she is the founder and driving force of Dark Sugars in Greenwich Market.

The broad glass doors of her flagship store on Nelson Road, Dark Sugars Cocoa House, draws you into a world of dark, sweet, perfumes; bold, earthy colours; and tactile, hand-made wooden furniture. Crafted into organic shapes from baobab wood from Burkina Faso, the wood enfolds dusky chocolate delights in every nook and cranny. Here are melting truffles, dusted with russet-brown cocoa; there are flat, shiny bars of meltingly pure chocolate; and the air is almost edibly scented with hot chocolate and ice-cream.

Nyanga is determined to bring West African cocoa to the place it deserves in the global pantry. Seventy per cent of the world’s cocoa is grown here – in countries like Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Nigeria – yet few know this. As she says, ‘they’re just not as publicised as Belgian chocolate, or Swiss chocolate.’

Nyanga’s determined to correct this – bringing the high-quality, unique cocoas of West Africa’s two million farmers the acclaim it deserves. With Dark Sugars piled to the rafters with sweet chocolate in many wondrous forms, she wants to connect to this agricultural tradition in her homeland, celebrating not just confectionery, but ‘the health benefits of the cocoa’.

And so, she makes regular trips to her 33-acre family farm in Ghana, working closely with the Ghana Cocoa Board. She also has close ties to the two families who tend her land (and whose children she’s putting through school) – ensuring everything runs smoothly, and the cocoa is of the highest quality. Nyanga’s own children – daughter Isatou (pictured above) and son Mohammed Doudoo – sometimes help their Mum out in the store. They’re very close: the initials of Dark Sugars even reflect the ‘d’ in Doudoo and the ‘s’ in Isatou.

Dark Sugars uses only rare criollo and trinitario beans, which yield less but produce superior fruit. The chocolate is made in-house, without preservatives and by natural means, meaning it only lasts a week or so, and the kitchen’s always cooking. This sets Dark Sugars apart from mass-market chocolatiers like Lindt or Hotel Chocolat.

Not all Dark Sugars’ cocoa comes from the family farm, of course. Respecting the original terroir like a perfectionist vigneron, Nyanga produces chocolate from beans sourced exclusively from farms in southeast Asia, South America, the Caribbean and other African countries. Beautifully packaged like an edible atlas, her ‘chocolate of the world’ collection ranges from smooth, subtle confectionery to far more robust, fruity varieties.

Dark Sugars started out in 1997, trading in Borough Market and Spitalfields. Following time off for research and self-discovery in South America and Ghana, Nyanga opened her first store in Brick Lane. Now, the handsome, four-storey Greenwich store is her flagship. Downstairs it’s all truffles, gift boxes and Dark Sugars’ incredible ice cream; upstairs will be a cocoa bar (for hot chocolate and alcoholic chocolate drinks) cocoa workshops and soon, an actual cocoa tree!

And what of the future? Nyanga is keen to extend her natural, additive free methods to many other cocoa-based treats. There are flavoured chocolate bombs, designed to drop into milk; the chocolate ‘tasting atlas’; and new lines showcasing Dark Sugar’s single-origin beans emerging all the time. Once Nyanga’s dreams for the whole, four-storey Cocoa House are realised, Greenwich Market will be able to lay claim to London’s greatest and most distinctive palace of chocolate!