Where Does Chocolate Come From?

Who likes chocolate? Where does chocolate come from? In case your answer is from the candy store, the grocery store, or Hershey Pennsylvania, this Instructable will clue you in to some amazing facts about this delectable food and you'll learn about the many steps that go into making chocolate. Why not peel the wrapper off a chocolate bar and enjoy it while you read on about where chocolate comes from.

The short answer is chocolate comes from the cacao tree. Theobroma cacao is its scientific name. These small trees grow in the shade of larger trees in tropical rainy parts of the world. It originated in South and Central America. Cacao has long been revered by humans. In addition to delicious chocolate, which is made from the fruit, cacao is believed to have a mild stimulant effect while lowering blood pressure. Cacao was held in high esteem by early Aztec people. Said to be the food of the Gods, cacao's fruits have even been used as money.

Cacao farming is labor intensive. It has not been mechanized, streamlined or scaled up like other forms of agriculture. Consequently cacao is farmed on small plots of about 5 to 10 acres in the tropics.

This is not really a recipe for making chocolate, but there is probably enough information to get started if you want to give it a try. Here is a list of recommended tools and supplies.

1. a cacao farm, or at least a source of cacao nibs (two cups makes a nice batch)
2. a grinder, search ebay and amazon for a hand cranked grain mill, or
3. electric wet grinder designed for chocolate (ebay or amazon again)
4. large heavy iron or aluminum open kettle suitable for pounding cacao kernels
5. sugar (about 1 cup for two cups of nibs)
6. two light weight large plastic bowls for winnowing away the cacao husks
7. a large electric fan, or a windy day for winnowing
8. a small quantity of coconut oil to mix into chocolate
9. double boiler to gently heat the ground chocolate if it becomes too hard to pour into molds
10. 8 inch shallow cake pans for molds (or other suitable containers)
11. extra ingredients for mixing into the chocolate (suggested: almonds, walnuts, shredded coconut, raisins, dried cherries)

Healthy cacao trees can produce fruit all year long, so it would not be surprising to find cacao in all stages of development all on the same tree. Teeny tiny flowers grow out of the trunk and branches of the tree. From these blossoms, fruits develop. Cacao pods are a little larger than a grapefruit, oblong, and have ridges going lengthwise. The whole thing slightly resembles the outside of an acorn squash. As the pods ripen, they turn red and yellow, like autumn leaves in North America. Yellowing pods tell us they are ready to cut. Workers use machetes and long bamboo poles with a sharp blade attached to the end to drop pods to the ground where they are collected.

Inside the pods are 30 to 50 white 'beans' or kernels, surrounded by a sweet slippery mass. Pods crack open with machetes and the beans are pulled out. Because of the sugary liquid content, it becomes a race against insects to collect all the beans and start them fermenting.

One other interesting point about this race is that if you cut the pods off the trees and then something prevents you from tending to them immediately, the seeds inside the pods start sprouting! Then, of course, they are no good for chocolate. You are probably better off starting a cacao nursery business in that case. I am told you have about a week to get your kernels fermenting before sprouting becomes a problem.

Fermentation is a secret sauce of chocolate making. The subtle flavors fermentation imparts to chocolate have a huge impact on flavor and quality. Cacao growers recognize this and build reputations on their command of fermentation, roasting, and other steps in the chocolate making process.

Fermentation generally takes about six days to complete. Kernels are often covered with banana leaves which help get fermentation off to a good start by holding in heat and being a source of beneficial yeasts and microbes. With careful turning and aerating, the beans develop a characteristic chocolaty smell. Then they are ready for drying.

After fermentation, the beans are ready to be spread out to air dry. Some growers place the beans on a concrete pad, under a movable cover to protect them from rain. After the beans dry, they are roasted in a medium oven, no higher than about 350 degrees F. As beans near doneness, some kernels pop like popcorn. The air fills with a smell like chocolate fudge.

After roasting, the cacao kernels are crushed in a large mortar and pestle type affair to break the outer shells that surround the nibs, or inner parts of the kernels. When the shells are broken up finely, they can be winnowed away by passing the kernels back and forth between containers, allowing the wind to blow away the shells and husks. An electric fan is very helpful in this part of the process.

When most of the husks have dispersed, you are left with cocoa nibs, the basic material used for making chocolate, cocoa powder, and cocoa butter.

If you have been paying close attention, maybe you noticed a change in terminology, a switch from calling it cacao to cocoa. I have absolutely no idea why the names change, but they do. Most people use cacao to to refer to the trees, the pods, the kernels, everything through the roasting stage. But once we have nibs, the terminology changes to cocoa.

Anyway, we grind the nibs, and we grind them, and grind some more until they turn into a thick brown liquid or pasty chocolate. Sugar and other flavorings can be added to achieve different effects. Alternatively, we could process the chocolate further by pressing out the oil to make cocoa butter and cocoa powder. We will keep things simple and just focus on making chocolate right now. Just know that ground chocolate is roughly 50/50 butter and powder. Each has food and cosmetic uses.

The video clips show a couple tools useful in grinding small batches of chocolate. A motorized wet grinder, actually has stone wheels inside that turn as an electric motor spins the outer drum. It runs, crushing the nibs down to as small as 20 microns (20 millionths of a meter). A hand cranked grain mill also works. The grain mill has the advantage of being (way) less expensive, but it requires (way) more physical work to operate.

Eventually the nibs are ground down until we are left with a thick liquid or paste. Cocoa butter is solid until it melts at 95 degrees F. The electric grinders generate more heat so the chocolate liquefies easily. The hand cranked mill, which operates much more slowly doesn't heat the chocolate as much so it becomes more like a soft paste. Sweetener, extra cocoa butter, coconut oil or other ingredients can be added during grinding to affect flavor and texture At this point the chocolate is ready to be poured into molds. Sometimes it may be poured over nuts, dried fruit, or left just plain.

There you have it. Now you have a deeper understanding of where chocolate comes from and how it is made. Let's go back and think about that chocolate bar suggested at the very beginning of this instructable. We take things like this so for granted and never stop to think about the PEOPLE that do the work of growing harvesting and processing, almost all of it by hand, hours and days of labor. I hope I've been able to give you a taste for more than just the flavor of chocolate, but also for the amount of work involved and the workers with machetes walking through groves of trees. It probably wouldn't surprise you to know that of the one dollar price of a chocolate candy bar, the men and women that grow cacao are lucky to receive a penny. I guess that unfortunate fact is just the way of the world and big business. Let's see what we can do to change that. It begins, I think, with greater understanding about the whole process. I hope I've been able to convey some of that to you. Thanks for reading!

Thank you to Jonathan and Anairis Woods for kindly hosting me in the Dominican Republic and educating me on the amazing culture of Cacao.

Thanks also to Dorothy Dawson-Sheldon for encouraging me to make this Instructable.

Thank you to Caribbean Craft Cacao (https://www.facebook.com/Caribbeancraftcacao) for providing a truly wonderful ecotourist adventure on the cacao farm in Monte Plata, Dominican Republic. Follow them! They are growers working to offer their own unique line of cacao products as well as tourist accommodations at their farm in the central part of the Dominican Republic.