The Chocolate Journey (Part 1)
Chocolate goes through many stages of processing and travels thousands of miles before arriving on the shelf for you to buy.
The journey begins in the hot, humid belt about 20° north and south of the equator where the cacao tree grows. Ripe cacao pods are carefully cut from the trees by hand, avoiding damage to the flowers and immature pods, as the trees produce fruit all year round. A single pod may contain as many as a hundred cacao beans. The pods are then split open using a machete and left to ferment for several days. The fermentation process prevents the beans from germinating and is important in developing the final flavour of the bean. After fermentation, the beans are spread out in the sun to dry and are then packed into hessian bags for transportation.
The beans are then usually taken to a collection centre, where they are graded according to quality and flavour, before being shipped to Europe or the US for the next stage of processing.
On arrival, the cacao beans are carefully cleaned and sieved to remove stones, sticks and bits of loose shell. They are then roasted to bring out the full flavour and aroma of the bean. The roasting time and temperature varies with the type of bean.
Roasting also dries out the hull, or outer shell, which makes the next stage of winnowing easier. Here the hull is cracked open and blown away with air jets, leaving behind the inner kernel of the beans or “nibs”.
The cocoa nibs are then ground to a fine paste by passing them through a series of rollers, and finally through a “ball mill” which is a large vessel containing millions of ball-bearings, which are constantly being agitated. At the end of this process, the cocoa nibs are reduced to a liquid, known as “cocoa liquor” which consists of the melted cocoa butter and free cocoa solids released from the kernel.
We still, however, don’t have anything resembling a chocolate bar - see The Chocolate Journey Part 2 for the rest of the story!
