The Lure of Chocolate, Page 2
During the 19th Century, three major new processes changed chocolate forever. C. J. Van Houten, in 1828, invented a press that squeezes out the cocoa butter from the beans. This alkalizing process, known as "Dutching", removes the bitterness, acidity, and oiliness and makes it easier to blend with milk and water. This is why cocoa powder is today referred to as Dutch Cocoa. Then Daniel Peter, a Swiss, added sweetened condensed milk to the Dutch Cocoa in 1875 and put the first milk chocolate on market. Four years later another Swiss, Rodolphe Lindt invented a method to re-introduce the cocoa butter to the cocoa powder, which had been removed during the dutching process. This put chocolate back into its liquid form. Lindt's process, known as "conching," heats and rolls the chocolate in order to refine it so that it also becomes creamy, not grainy, i.e. it melts in your mouth.
Since then the chocolate industry has grown tremendously and today is a multi-billion dollar industry. Approximately 600,000 tons of beans are consumed annually across the globe. Switzerland consumes the most chocolate per capita. The United States imports the greatest amount of coco beans. The Ivory Coast and Brazil are the leaders in production.
The Process: Have no doubt; delicious chocolate is not created overnight. It is a long but worthwhile process. Chocolate is a natural product made from two types of cocoa beans: the Forastero and the Criolla. The Forastero are grown in West Africa and produce 90% of the cocoa crop. They are rather bitter. The Criolla are produced in Venezuela and Ecuador and are difficult to grow but produce the finest cocoa. The cocoa tree is a tropical tree that needs the hot rainy climate that is found around the equator to thrive. Seedlings are planted when they are a few months old. The young trees need a lot of shade and protection from the wind. In about two years, the first blossoms begin to appear. A full-grown tree can produce upwards of 50,000 blossoms a year and between 20 and 30 fruit a year. A tree reaches maturity at eight years and can produce close to 5 pounds of beans a year for roughly 30 years. The fruit is about 3 inches in diameter and about 7 inches long. The shell is hard and changes color as it ripens, from green to brown. Inside the pulp of the fruit are five rows of almond shaped beans.
The harvest seasons are May and October even though the tree blooms throughout the year. The picker must walk through the groves with a long handled knife and cut down the pods while taking care not to upset the shallow roots or the soft bark. After the fruit has been harvested, it must be immediately treated so that it does not rot. The seeds are removed from the pods. A layer of pulp remains, which begins to ferment once it heats up in the sun. This will help remove some of the bitter taste. The fermentation process creates its own heat, up to 125 degrees Fahrenheit and kills the germ of the seed. The heat also activates the enzymes that later produce the chocolate flavor, which is brought out during drying and roasting. After being dried so that they will not rot, the beans lose about half of their weight. Then the beans are packed and sent to manufacturers for roasting and further processing.
Once the manufacturer receives the cocoa beans, they are cleaned; the two types are blended according to the manufacturer's recipe, and then roasted. Roasting takes place in large cylinders at 250 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes to two hours. The roasting process fully develops the aroma of the bean. The husks of the beans are cracked into smaller pieces and are removed from the seeds. Next comes the grinding process, when the broken nibs (hulled and roasted cocoa beans) are pressed through a mill causing a lot of friction and heat. This heat melts the cocoa butter and the entire batch is liquefied; turning it into something called chocolate liquor, which is not alcoholic at all. Then the liquor is poured into molds and left to solidify into a cocoa paste in its unsweetened bitter state. After this, the manufacturer can either make cocoa powder or chocolate.
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