Despite chocolate’s centuries-old popularity, cacao is not an easy plant to grow as it only thrives in climates 20 degrees north and south of the equator. It must be planted next to taller trees whose leaves will protect it from direct sun and high wind and, like many other plants and trees it is susceptible to pests and disease which routinely destroy one-third of the world’s yearly crop. In addition, the trees are not very productive. A tree must be five or six years old before it will bear fruit. Each tree bears about 30 usable pods a year, which translates to roughly 1000 beans a year. If it takes 500 beans to make 1 pound of bittersweet chocolate, then in the best of circumstances, each tree produces beans for only 2 pounds of chocolate.
From the Tree to the Factory:
Harvesting:
Chocolate doesn't just grow to be sweet, sugary, wrapper clad deliciousness, its actually extremely bitter when it is cultivated. Cacao pods are harvested by cutting the pods from the tree using a machete, or by knocking them off the tree using a stick. Looking at a cacao tree it’s hard to imagine that the world’s favorite treat starts out here. It’s a really funny-looking tree. It has colorful, rugby ball-shaped pods which sprout from the trunk and hang on the branches. The pods are so big it looks as if they defy gravity, jutting straight out of the trunk and suspended from the tree’s thin branches. But inside these pods is where chocolate magic begins. Each pod houses about 40 cacao beans, also called cocoa beans. The beans are covered in sticky, white, sweet tasting pulp which looks odd but actually is critical to the ultimate development of the bean’s flavor.
Of the 3.5 million cacao farms worldwide, 2.6 million are located in Africa. Every part of cacao farming, from planting to harvesting to fermenting, is best done by hand, not machines. Pods must be removed from the trees individually, by hand, because not all ripen at the same time. The pods are split open by hand. The beans are scooped out and the outer shell is discarded. If you tasted a bean at this point you would notice a sweet, lemony flavor from the pulp. The actual bean would be bitter and hard to eat.
Fermentation:
Chocolate makers ferment the beans once they are scooped from the pods. The beans, still covered in pulp and shells are placed in large boxes and covered with banana leaves. The sugar in the pulp is converted into acids which change the chemical composition of the beans. Fermentation takes anywhere from two to eight days, the longer the ferment, the more flavour you get.
Drying:
Drying is the next step. The best way to dry the beans is to place them on bamboo mats and let them sit in the sun. Its important to let the beans dry slowly, otherwise they become bitter again. They're then packed in burlap bags and shipped away.
Distribution:
The dried beans are them sent to buyers who sample them to ensure they were produced properly.
At the Factory (or In Your Home):
The fermented and dried beans that were packed into large bags are sent to factories world wide. This is where the magic happens. Your favourite chocolates are concocted using a number of ingredients and methods.
Roasting:
The cacao beans are cleaned upon arrival and are roasted. There are two ways to roast the beans. The first is for a short period of time at a high heat, which produces strong flavours and may sometimes suffer from over-roasting. The second is for a long period of time at low heat, allowing more delicate flavours to come through.
Winnowing:
After the beans are done roasting, they are placed into a machine that removes the tough outer shell, leaving behind what is called "nibs".
Milling:
These nibs are then ground into cocoa mass, which is pure chocolate. This chocolate, known as chocolate liquor, can be liquefied and molded, most of the time with other ingredients added in the mix, which is what the general population consumes as milk chocolate. Personally, I love dark chocolate. I'm talking 90 percent dark chocolate! Anyways, this chocolate "liquor" doesn't have any actual alcohol in it, despite the name. (What a shame!)
Pressing:
Anyways, that liquor we were talking about, its processed into two categories: cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Cocoa solids are are the low-fat component of chocolate. You kids may know it as cocoa powder, cocoa, or cacao. Cocoa butter on the other hand is the fatty component of chocolate. Its a pale-yellow, pure edible vegetable fat used to make chocolate, biscuits, baked goods, pharmaceuticals, ointments, and toiletries. Bet you didn't know you were really putting chocolate on your face when you were using that cocoa butter huh? Chocolatiers then add their specific set of ingredients to create dark, milk or white chocolate.
Your basic ingredients for different types of chocolates are as follows:
• Dark chocolate: sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa liquor, and (sometimes) vanilla
• Milk chocolate: sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa liquor, milk or milk powder, and vanilla
• White chocolate: sugar, cocoa butter, milk or milk powder, and vanilla
Conching:
So after the liquor is made, the penultimate process is called conching takes place. This affects the chocolates texture. A conche is basically a metal grinder that makes chocolate prior to conching uneven and gritty. The conching process produces cocoa and sugar particles smaller than the tongue can detect, hence the smooth feel in the mouth. The length of the conching process determines the final smoothness and quality of the chocolate. High-quality chocolate is conched for about 72 hours, lesser grades about four to six hours.
Tempering:
Uncontrolled crystallization of cocoa butter typically results in crystals of varying size, some or all large enough to be clearly seen with the naked eye. This causes the surface of the chocolate to appear mottled and matte, and causes the chocolate to crumble rather than snap when broken. The uniform sheen and crisp bite of properly processed chocolate are the result of consistently small cocoa butter crystals produced by first heating the chocolate to 45 °C to melt all six forms of crystals in chocolate. The chocolate is cooled to about 27 °C which will allow crystal types 4 and 5 to form. The chocolate is then heated to about 31 °C to eliminate any type 4 crystals, leaving just type 5. After this point, any excessive heating of the chocolate will destroy the temper and this process will have to be repeated.
Moulding:
Your favourite chocolate is then poured into custom moulds and cooled before being packaged away to your favourite chocolate store.
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