The Production Process

1. Chocolate is the name of a particular preparation of cacao seeds.
2. The seeds themselves are quite bitter. The first part of the chocolate production process involved the fermentation of these bitter seeds.
3. After this, the seeds (sometimes also called beans) are dried, cleaned and roasted.
4. The shell is then removed, producing what are called cacao nibs.
5. The nibs are then ground down; the paste is known as cocoa mass - effectively this is now chocolate in its ‘purest’ form.
6. The cocoa mass is usually then liquefied, and becomes known as chocolate liquor.
7. The liquor is then further processed into cocoa solids (the non-fatty portion) and cocoa butter (essentially the rest).
8. Next, chocolate liquor is actually blended with the separated cocoa butter in various proportions to make different types of chocolate.
9. At this stage, the chocolate has a rather uneven and gritty texture; it is therefore put through a process called conching - this is basically grinding the chocolate to an extremely fine level, so that there are particles smaller than the tongue can detect.
10. The chocolate is finally tempered, to prevent crystals from forming. The more carefully temperatures are controlled over this period, the better quality chocolate is made as a result.

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