I love chocolate

What is chocolate and how is it being created?

The cacao beans

The fruit of the cocoa tree is the cocoa pod which contains cocoa beans. After being harvested, the beans are going through a Fermentation process and drying process which takes in total around 3 weeks. Those process are giving the cocoa beans less bitter flavor and lowers their humidity level so they could be kept for long time and be transported. Before being transported, the beans undergo a quality check. They are then being pounded and stomped to remove the shells. The beans, which from then on are considered "tradable cocoa", are being shipped by boat and delivered to the processing countries.

The chocolate process

The beans are getting roasted and then grounded into a dough. The dough is kneaded in a machine and a thick paste is formed - that is the cocoa mass. It is the main ingredient in chocolate. The cocoa mass is the raw material for cocoa powder, cocoa butter and chocolate. The cocoa mass contains about 55% fat. That fat is the cocoa butter, and it is pressed from the mass. There remains a dry, rock hard chocolate cake that contains 10 to 24 percent fat. This is ground into cocoa powder. So, what's in the chocolate that we're going to eat?

Dark chocolate- cocoa mass + sugar.
Milk chocolate-cocoa mass + milk powder + sugar.
White chocolate- cocoa butter + milk powder + sugar .