The first people to harvest the fruit of the cacao tree were the ancient Aztec and Mayan cultures over 2000 years ago. Chocolate was an integral part of their society, often appearing in ancient artwork as a pot overflowing with brown liquid.
Chocolate at this time was strictly a drink. It would not be consumed in solid form for centuries. Chocolate was often used to commemorate celebrations, much the same way we use champagne today.
No Sugar Added
It is important to realize these early cultures did not add sugar to their chocolate drink. It would have tasted very bitter, like mixing cocoa powder and water. These ancient cultures often added hot chilies to their chocolate drink, and sometimes even dyed it red to make it look like blood. Not very appetizing by today’s standards!
Spanish Explorers Introduce Chocolate to Europe
Chocolate was taken to Europe after Spanish explorers conquered Central America in the 1500s. The Spanish added sugar to the drink, making it taste more like the hot chocolate we know today.
Instead of spreading north through Native American cultures, chocolate actually traveled across the ocean with the Spanish, where it spread throughout Europe as an exotic new drink. The colonists who settled the New World would have known about chocolate from back home, not through contact with native North American peoples.
Chocolate was quite expensive in Europe, because of high shipping costs, so ordinary citizens did not have access to it. The French believed chocolate was an aphrodisiac and slapped heavy taxes on it. Only the elite of society – the nobility and royalty – could afford chocolate.
The Cacao Tree
The cacao tree is extremely sensitive and can only be grown 20 degrees north and south of the equator. It can only thrive in climates that maintain a temperature between 60 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit. It takes seven to ten years to fully mature and begin bearing fruit.
The tree is rather odd looking, because the cacao pods actually grow from the trunk of the tree. The pods are harvested by hand twice a year. Each tree grows 20-30 pods a year, and each pod contains 30-40 cocoa beans.
How To Make Chocolate
The process of making chocolate is quite complicated. There are many steps, and each is essential to the process. If you skip any step, the end result will not taste like chocolate.
First, workers harvest the pods, which are extremely hard. They have no way to open on their own, so they rely on humans and animals to crack the shell and distribute the seeds. After the beans are removed from the milky pulp inside, they are fermented for five to six days.
Next, the cocoa beans are placed on large, flat trays to dry out in the sun. This part of the process takes one to two weeks.
After the beans are dried, they are roasted, much like a coffee bean. The inside of the bean, called the nib, is separated from the shell, which can be used for fertilizer or mulch. The shells are not edible.
The nibs are then ground into what is called chocolate liquor. Despite its name, there is no alcohol content in chocolate.
Cocoa Butter and Cocoa Powder
At this point, the liquor is processed to separate the cocoa butter from the cocoa powder. Cocoa butter can be sold to the cosmetics industry, and is also added back into the process later in various amounts to create sweetened chocolate. The cocoa powder can be sold as is, or it can be pressed into blocks for baking chocolate.
The final steps are tempering and conching, which both create the correct texture for the chocolate. Tempering means bringing the chocolate up to a certain temperature repeatedly, and letting it cool. Conching means stirring the chocolate at a certain speed for a specific length of time. The formula is proprietary for each candy maker.
