The exciting history of chocolate or, the story of the long journey of some bitter beans from the tropics to a chocolate bar

Botanists believe that thousands of years ago cacao trees grew in South America in the Amazon and Orinoco river basins. It is thought that the Mayans were the first to grow cacao trees and that they had the seeds of these trees (called cacao or cocoa) when they settled on the Yucatan peninsula. The Aztec royal court enjoyed the bitter chocolate drink made with thefinely ground cocoa beans and fermented corn or wine. It was served in gold cups.

When the Spanish conquistadors noticed that the Aztecs used cocoa beans as currency, they started to plant cacao tree plantations. Growing the “brown gold" on a large scale was very profitable so the Spaniards took over the cocoa bean trade very quickly. This monopoly was held by Spain until the XVIII century.

The Spaniards took cocoa seeds to Haiti, Trinidad and Bioko (an island near the west coast of Africa), and from there, the cocoa seed was taken to Africa.

Chocolate in Europe

In the XVI century the Spanish royal court was familiar with the drink of the Aztecs. Chocolate flavoured with spices was a popular social drink among the ladies-in-waiting. Sometimes it was even used as a black-market currency. In the years that followed, chocolate also became popular among the upper classes of European society.

The European success of chocolate was the result of its original taste and the healing powers which were attributed to it.

During the industrial revolution, the manufacture of chocolate was mechanized. After the first steam mills were built, grinding cocoa beans by hand was given up.

An even more important change took place in 1828, when a Dutch chemist, Coenraad van Houten, invented a method of extracting cocoa butter from the cocoa pulp that is produced from the ground beans. The development of this method led to the appearance of other inventions, for example a recipe to make chocolate for eating, made from cocoa mass (a thick brown substance), cocoa butter and sugar.

One Swiss invention from the second half of the XIX century made the following development in chocolate production possible. It was the conching process. During conching, the mass made from the ground beans is intensively mixed and pulped for many hours between porcelain disks in a device called a conch. Conching gives the chocolate a smooth consistency, so that it melts in the mouth. According to connoisseurs, the best chocolate is conched for no less than 3 days.

Cacao trees

Cacao trees are tropical plants. Their fruits looks like fat cucumbers and only grow from the trunk or the lower branches. The ripe fruits are harvested with a machete or a sharp knife on a bamboo stick. Then the fruits are cut in half. In the white bitter-sweet pulp there are 20 to 50 seeds, which are extracted by hand. At harvest time people work from dawn until dusk halving the fruits and extracting the seeds. The seeds are kept under cover for several days. During this time the pulp ferments and chemical reactions take place which turn the cocoa seeds chocolate brown. Next they are dried in the sun or in special hot air dryers. This is done to prevent the seeds from spoiling during shipping or storage.

There are two kinds of cacao trees and beans: Forastero and Criollo. The first variety is the most common and produces the majority of the worldwide cacao seed crop. Most Forastero plantations are in west Africa, Brazil and south-east Asia. The Criollo variety is much more delicate. It is grown on a much smaller scale in central America, Ecuador and Venezuela. The chocolate made with Criollo has a nutty, aromatic flavour.

Dried cocoa seeds are packed into bags and shipped around the world. Europe and North America have the biggest demand for cocoa seeds. Two bunches of dried seeds are enough to make half a kilo of chocolate products.

How chocolate is made

When cocoa beans get to the chocolate factory, they are first sorted and cleaned. Next the beans are roasted to extract the desired chocolate taste (this process is similar to the roasting of coffee beans).

The roasted beans are then husked to extract the brown kernels inside. These kernels are what the best kinds of cocoa and chocolate are made from.

Cocoa bean kernels are ground into a thick, dark substance called cocoa mass. The hardened cocoa mass becomes bitter chocolate, that is sold for industrial baking. Cocoa mass can be pressed to extract cocoa butter (cocoa fat) and cocoa powder. This is the method invented by van Houten. If cocoa mass is enriched with cocoa butter, after more processing it becomes the product with which we are all familiar - chocolate.

This processing treatment consists of conching and refining.

The final products are all kinds of popular chocolate goods.

Real chocolate does not contain any other fat except that obtained from the seeds of the cacao tree. It is true that current standards permit a 5% addition of other vegetable fats but if this addition is greater, the final product can only be called a chocolate-flavoured bar.

Substitute chocolate

This is confectionery that is supposed to be similar to chocolate in taste and appearance but is made with vegetable fats other than cocoa butter. It was produced in Poland in the 1980s. This was due to difficulties in importing cocoa supplies. Initially other tropical vegetable fats besides cocoa butter were used. But in later years even rapeseed oil was used.