How is chocolate made?
Chocolate is made from cacao beans. The beans are fermented, dried, roasted and ground into a paste, then mixed with sugar and often milk and cocoa butter.
Cacao trees grow in hot, rainy regions near the equator, such as West Africa and Latin America. Their large pods contain beans surrounded by sweet pulp. After harvest, the beans and pulp are left to ferment for several days, which develops chocolate flavor. The beans are then dried in the sun and shipped to factories.
At the factory, the beans are roasted and cracked, and the shells are removed, leaving pieces called nibs. The nibs are ground into a thick liquid called cocoa liquor. This can be pressed to separate cocoa butter from cocoa powder, or mixed with sugar, cocoa butter, milk powder and other ingredients.
Conching and tempering
The mixture is refined and stirred for hours or even days in a process called conching, which makes it smooth and mellow. Finally, it is tempered by carefully heating and cooling it, giving finished chocolate its glossy shine and satisfying snap.
Did You Know?
Ivory Coast and Ghana together produce more than half of the world's cocoa beans.